


Sandcastles

by dbcwinter



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of drugs, Some bad language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-05-31 17:32:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 110,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15124427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dbcwinter/pseuds/dbcwinter
Summary: Years after their separation in Gila, Sara and Michael are finding their way back to each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, hello all,
> 
> this is my first attempt at writing a Prison Break fic. It is set sometime after 2x10. I'll probably include some stuff from the canon later on, if I find them to fit the storyline. Feel free to read, criticize, praise, get in touch. Apologies for any missspellings (:)), errors, etc.
> 
> Thanks for reading and much love to you all,
> 
> winter.

Chapter One

If she had ever imagined life on the run, none of this would have made the list. Of course, there had never been a need to her to entertain such a possibility – not until Michael Scofield walked into her infirmary, that is.

Her bare feet were now immersed in the golden sand. The sun shone down on her in all its glory, reflecting off the idle waves. The light breeze, imbued with the smell of the ocean, was embracing her figure, caressing the cuts on her arms. If she closed her eyes, she could all but mistake it for the touch of his fingers. With her eyes shut, with only the calming sound of the waves breaking upon hitting the shore and the laughter of kids building a sandcastle to the left of her, the magnitude of all that had happened over the past week – her father's death, Gila, oh, Gila – felt a little less overwhelming. As broken as she was, she had never felt more alive.

Any day now, she repeated to herself for a countless time, any day he'd be here. She'd bury her face in the crook of his neck and his arms would press her to him, isolating them in a cocoon of … God, she was insane for merely considering the word. He was all that she had left. It was a fact that should make alarms in her head go off, but it didn't matter. He had annihilated her world, smashed it into pieces so small she could barely recognize herself – she had relapsed, for god's sake –, but they would build a new existence for themselves, together. There was an ocean of possibilities – it was all around her, so bright, so endless. They would get on a boat and sail off into the sunset. Only two months ago she would see it as a cloying trope, but she wasn't in love then. Insane, irrational, devastating, explosive, healing love.

Costa Rica was just an aberration in his plans. That was what Bruce Bennett had told her when he found her in that cheap motel in Nebraska, with blood still oozing from where the shard had penetrated her skin and the collar still wet from when she had been held underwater. She was sitting on a duvet, wanting a shot of morphine, just one, just to stop trembling, for her mind to calm down just a little, like a hundred others perched there before her, wanting to make love, to writhe under his reassuring frame, with her heart racing, reassembled the moment she had laid her eyes on him again.

A car came to a stop on the motel parking lot under her window. She rose with urgency that accompanied her since she had thrown herself from the window in Gila, further exacerbated when she had realized he was gone. She peeked through the curtains that had lost their divine white many washes ago, now permeated with the stench of cigarette smoke.

She held her breath, waiting for a figure to emerge from the parked car. It would certainly be a nameless nobody, like umpteen times before today, the rational part of her insisted, too tiny to silence her grief, panic, fear, longing. She was crazy to think, to just hope that it could be him. How could he possibly know? She had picked a random bus, the fourth leaving Gila, just to make it less obvious. He had been long gone by then, that one more day slipping away from her while she had been underwater. He must have been out of the country by now. Even if he did stay behind to find her, how could he know where she was? She herself had no fucking clue where she had gotten off the bus.

What had she been thinking, leaving their room by herself? The walls the night had built around them numbed her, shielding the insidious threat from her grasp. She had walked up that parking lot with a beam that still felt foreign to her, that should abash her, yet it felt so right. Now she would be hunted down like a dog with rabies, shot without the aim to protect, left behind without a marker to remember her by. And while her life would be ending, he'd have a new beginning. He'd remember her, for a while, certainly. Would he wonder what happened to her? Would he know it wasn't her choice? But the feel of her underneath his fingertips, the taste of her on his lips, it was all too ephemeral, too disjointed to last. He'd meet someone someday, and the woman would distract his thoughts until she'd be nothing more than an occasional echo, silenced by the babel of bills, babies, and freedom. He'd live out what would be the last thing on her eyelids.

Her throat was dry, her fingers clenched the curtain, and the tension in her legs readied her to bolt the moment she'd see a smile of a friend on the killer's face. She could cry with relief when the man turned and it was Bruce Bennett.

Michael had looked him up, Bruce told her. He wanted her out of the country, safe. From the way Bruce's eyes lingered on her bandaged upper arm, she guessed Michael must have known what had happened. Relief rippled through her body again, her desire to cry, finally cry, almost too much to bear. But he couldn't risk any direct contact with her, she forced herself to focus again on Bruce's words. Not after what had transpired in Gila. So Bruce was here instead, with a new passport for her, a new name. He was to get her to Costa Rica where she'd stay until it was safe for Michael to come and get her. Not Panama, Bruce stressed. People were working on decoding Michael's plan and Panama was its cornerstone. No way was she to be in Panama by herself. It was in Costa Rica that she was to wait for him.

Wait for him.

Wait for me.

If she had any doubt about the verity of Bruce's words, they evanesced with the memory of Michael's voice.

So here she was, on a beach in a sequestered town in Costa Rica, with her new papers stowed away in a nightstand in her beach-front cottage. Bruce had given her the keys. What could be arranged on such a short notice, Bruce had told her. But it didn't matter. They would be out of here, together, in a matter of days, she reminded herself.

The cool of the rising tide enveloped her feet, awakening her from her reverie. The kids on her left shouted and dispersed up the beach. Their sandcastle was losing its battle with the ocean, swallowed by the water wall by wall.

Four weeks later the adrenaline, the optimism, the infatuation had enfeebled enough for all that she had suppressed to return with vengeance. The heat of the Panamanian summer also seemed to be getting worse by the minute.

"It's actually been a clement summer so far," a girl she befriended rebuked her words. "You're just not used to it."

She held on to Chloé's words with all her might, hoping she'd acclimatize soon. But beads of sweat covered her forehead regardless of what she was doing, sitting under the open window in her cottage, letting the breeze caress her hair (she still wasn't used to it only reaching her shoulders), or seeking shadow in the market when shopping for produce.

Why she even bothered getting food was beyond her as well. She couldn't keep anything down. If it wasn't the heat upsetting her stomach, it was the memories. There wasn't a single night that went undisturbed. She lay on top of the covers, yet woke up every night with her skin glowing from sweat. Some nights she could swear she smelled the reek of blueberry pies, sending her to seek solace on the cool tiles in the bathroom. Other nights there was an invisible smoke encompassing her and she kept looking up for a hand to save her, only to realize she wasn't in Fox River anymore. Once she toddled toward the kitchen for a glass of water when her sleep-deprived eyes missed the partly opened door. She screamed, thinking that amidst the shadows she had discovered her father's body yet again.

"You need to keep the windows open at night," Chloé told her. "It is the only time the air cools."

She couldn't tell her, of course, that she didn't dare to sleep with the windows open, not after the bloodshed she had lived through.

Most nights she still listened for a sound of someone else being in the cottage. She turned on the night light and took the kitchen knife she kept on top of her new identity. Tiptoeing, she surveyed the cottage, ready to push the knife into a body if one appeared in front of her. At the same time, there was hesitation, just in case it was his face that the moonlight illuminated.

There was never anyone there.

She was going crazy.

Before returning to the bedroom, she checked the door – double locked – and the windows – all closed. Throwing the sweat-drenched covers on the floor, she rolled into a fetus position, trying to calm her breathing. The cold water she later splashed onto her face seemed to match the heat of her burning skin.

Where was he?

In the middle of the night, with nothing but shadows keeping her company and the excruciating humidity disrupting her breathing, she feared she already knew.

Seeing Bruce on her doorstep one morning was the first thing that made her smile in weeks. He, too, a lifelong Chicago resident, struggled with the heat. She had never seen him in anything but his professional attire, not even when he had spent a day with her when she was little and her father (the word almost made her stomach turn upside down again) prioritized work over her. The realization widened her grin. She walked into his embrace and said she was okay.

There was a shopping bag hanging off his wrist.

"I brought breakfast," he said. They walked to the beach, to the pier from which fishermen headed into the early morning mist. The sun was still safely in the east, and the closeness of the sea was a respite that filled her lungs with air for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

They took off their shoes, and he rolled up his trousers around his knees before dipping his feet in the water. After sighing with relief, he took off his tie as well and flung it over his shoulder.

As happy as she was to see Bruce, there was worry in every fiber of her and a question on the tip of her tongue. He must have sensed it; while putting fruit and pastry from the bag and onto the wooden pier, he said, "He's okay."

"Good to know," she exhaled the air she had held for weeks. To make sure he didn't see it, she let her eyes run up and down the beach. There was an elderly couple, holding hands and giggling into each other's face. The kids were back, trying their luck with sandcastles once more. From where she was sitting, she could see they were too close to the edge of the water again.

"There has been a change of plans, though," he continued after a minute. "They, um, from what I understand, they have someone working with them now. Someone from the inside. It is not about running anymore. They are hoping to prove that Lincoln is innocent. To be exonerated. So that you will all be able to live free again. In America."

Of course he would do that, she thought to herself.

"So it will be a bit longer?" she asked, struggling to maintain a neutral tone.

"Just a little bit longer," he intoned.

The next time Bruce Bennett showed up, it was more than a little bit later and she wasn't alone anymore.

It was over three months since she had felt his hands caressing, claiming her and since he had given her a new name. The scars on her arms were gone – well, except for the deepest one, but her medical degree had never let her believe it would ever properly heal, having stitched herself up in the dim bathroom light – and her mind, her emotions finally accepted her choice of what she wanted to remember about Gila.

It had just rained, and even though it was two in the morning, the window in her living room was open wide. She was in the rocking chair she had got in the flea market for a ridiculously low price; Chloé's father was home while his ship was in Golfito and later put it together for her. Perhaps, she wondered, beers here would be even less than twenty-five cents at happy hour. She'd let him find that one out, at least for the next couple of months.

The breeze was refreshing and she let it cool her skin. She closed her eyes at the sensation, listening to the rustling of the curtains and the purring of the cat.

The cat. While she had thought there was someone sneaking around the cottage, trying to break in, it had only been the cat all along. She found the curious paws sleeping on her doormat one morning when heading to the market. It ran away startled, but she left it some milk in a saucer and left-over meat she knew she wouldn't keep down. A week later, while she was preparing her daily lunch, as plain as she could make it, it jumped through the open window on the counter, hanging around the cottage ever since.

"You should give him a name," Chloé had insisted, her voice still a little bit hoarse, but she found naming a cat to be too permanent a thing, even though she had brought curtains on a whim when returning from work the day everything changed. She still wasn't sure how long she'd be in Costa Rica. For all she knew, he would come to her any day now. Maybe he was passing through the border right then. She had to wonder if he'd notice the moment he'd see her. Would he be happy, just as it had restored her?

"Then I'll name him," Chloé decided, settling on Jackson after a medical soap the two watched religiously ever since it had come up that she used to be a doctor. In addition to helping at the local clinic four days a week, she was now analyzing medical cases featured on the show.

She hardly refrained herself from calling it Jackson herself now that it jumped onto her lap, determined to discover what she had in her bowl. She had started taking better care of herself and it had gotten easier to keep anything down.

"You don't eat fruit, silly," she laughed and petted its head. The cat seemed to realize it itself and instead coiled on her knees. She put the bowl – almost empty, she lauded herself – on the floor and commenced rocking back and forth, the furry bundle resting on her lap just like she had had on her mother's when she was a child. The two drifted toward sleep when a car came to a halt in front of the house, startling her awake.

It was the most beautiful sound. If it was one of them, they'd come on foot, careful to catch her unprepared, she was certain. Whoever the arrival was, they didn't try to conceal themselves, the sound of gravel under the wheels giving them unmistakingly away. They didn't let the rules of propriety stop them. It was past two in the morning. Only someone convinced she herself was longing to have his arms around her as much as he wished to hold her would be coming with the moonlight.

The cat sensed the rush that reigned over her. It shook, meowed and jumped off her knees, lying down by the chair to resume its napping. She got up and heard the bowl tip over. She didn't bother picking it up. Nothing mattered but hurrying to the door, opening it to the awaiting future. The oversized shirt Chloé's mother had given her flowed around her, like the air of an angel.

Are they free, she wondered. Are they finally free to share a new, blossoming life?

This time she could not muster any joy upon seeing Bruce Bennett leaning on the hood of a car. He didn't need to say anything. His shirt was buttoned up in that serious fashion, and he solemnly held a box in his hands. And then there was the ungodly hour, of course. No one drops by at two in the morning if not to convey news in a somber tone.

"It's not good," he broke the silence. She embraced herself, biting her lower lip. "I'm so sorry."

Perhaps she had known for a while, she mused with dry cheeks. He would have gotten in touch. Regardless of the peril, he would have found a way. There would be a paper crane waiting for her. A burner phone appearing mysteriously in the mailbox. He would have found a way. Maybe the third thing he had ever given her, after the paper rose and a new name, was the hello … and goodbye.

She invited Bruce inside with calm that surprised her. She made him a drink, and if he noticed, he didn't mention it. She was certainly not about to bring it up.

He told her they had broken into a building that supposedly held cards that would expose the Company's work. She didn't know what the Company was and she didn't ask. What difference would it make?

Someone had tipped off the Company about their plan. The building had blown up, and he and his brother hadn't made it out in time. Bruce's tale was vague, intentionally so, she supposed, yet detailed enough for her.

"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I, um, I took the liberty of bringing you some, um, things to, um, you know. Something to, um, remember him by. Photographs and such. If you want."

"Thank you," was the first thing she said since his arrival, lifting her hand off her belly and reaching for the box, no larger than a shoe box, pulling it closer.

"If you need anything, call me," Bruce continued. It seemed to her he wanted to reach out for her hand, but something stopped him. "I will do anything in my power to help you. I'm working to have the charges against you dropped."

"Thank you," she repeated.

"He was a great man. A valiant man."

She didn't respond. The image of sandcastles the kids kept building on the beach, always so naively close to the water, flashed in front of her eyes. It wasn't until this moment that she realized why it had always fascinated her so. She, too, kept building her own sandcastles. Now the water came, just as she should have seen it coming, crushing the mirage she had built. She was engulfed in a sandstorm that stuck on her sweaty skin, entangled in her hair.

But it didn't blind her. Her eyes remained clear, and her heart, though broken, kept beating.

She remembered a man brought to the ER in her first week as an intern. He had been crushed under a car, his entire left side crushed. Broken ribs penetrated his lungs, and his belly was swollen with blood leaking from his ruptured organs. Her superiors worked on him with motoric gestures, following the procedure despite the outcome lingering unspoken around them.

"It doesn't hurt," he managed as she held his hand. "It doesn't hurt at all."

She had thought he was trying to be brave, as much for him as for her. She had seen his scans after all. Now she wondered if perhaps a body has a way of deceiving itself when the pain experienced would prove too much to manage.

Bruce didn't stay long. The words he spoke, the condolences, the promises, the praise, it was all froth, they both knew it, just filling the harrowing void until it became uncomfortably cloying.

If he ever came to check on her again, she didn't know about it. Three days later, she made Chloé promise she'd care for Jackson. Then, with her new name in her pocket and her new start cradled under her hand, she boarded the ship captained by Chloé's father. Her eyes were unwaveringly dry; he had died for her freedom and it would be sacrilegious to cry. As the hamlet slowly diminished into a dot on the horizon before finally evanescing forever, she promised herself to never look back, for both of their sakes.


	2. Chapter 2

There was absolutely nothing Lincoln Burrows liked about the new agent in charge of their case. Of course, it had nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman, let alone with her petite frame, dark, straight hair, doe eyes, and the ethereal air of fragility that strongly suggested she didn't belong in their world of conspiracy, betrayal, peril, and death.

He snorted when she told them their case was the very first she was in charge of after having finished the Agency's training. Four years ago, his brother had broken them out of the maximum security facility. Since then, they had found all the fucking Scylla cards and unraveled a government security, being lauded as heroes not only by America, but the world. They had dined with the President, rejected slots in prime time talk shows, and picked up more than a handful of medals neither of them gave a shit about. And yet they got assigned a rookie for their case. Lincoln considered it to be a perfectly justifiable reason to be upset about.

But it wasn't it either. It was the sheer fact that their case still existed. What the fuck could the government still want from them? They had weeded out the traitors in exchange for freedom. It was the deal they had made all those years ago. They had done everything, so why the fuck were they once again seated behind a desk in a room without windows, facing a person holding a light brown file with their mugshots attached to the front cover?

At least they got coffee this time.

For five minutes now Agent Spencer had been talking in circles, apologizing for having them called back in, expressing her profound understanding that they had enough of the government, it being the very reason for the nightmare of recent years, that they had places to be, all the while stressing that this was a mere formality to get the story in order (so she wasn't even an agent, Lincoln thought. She was a bureaucrat. Somehow that made it even worse), to close the case for once and for all.

It was a struggle not to continuously roll his eyes at her words. She was right about so many things, of course. He did want to get the fuck out. He had been in spaces much smaller than this interrogation room (interrogation room, really. Couldn't they put them in an office? They would deserve it. But, he reminded himself, at least they got coffee. All they had usually gotten in a proximity of a federal agent was a hail of bullets aiming them), but never before had he felt so claustrophobic. He couldn't keep still anymore; every muscle in his body felt on fire, he kept running his hand over his sweaty scalp and he repositioned himself on the creaky chair repeatedly. There was still fucking steam billowing from the fucking coffee and for some reason, it annoyed him exponentially.

He definitely had plans. Lunch with LJ, his first as a free man in years. Then he'd get out of America, at least until he'd be reminded why he had once loved it. Panama, probably. It had been the cornerstone of Michael's initial plan and it became their lifeline after they started collaborating with the good people in the government (he snorted again. Good people in the government. Somehow it didn't matter anymore if people in question supported tax reforms that would keep bread off the table in homes like theirs when they had been kids. Everyone was good, fucking great, as long as they weren't concocting plans to kill them). Just think of Panama, they'd say to keep each other's morale up. When this is all over, sun, sandy beaches, cool beer – don't forget that. As he repeated it now in his head, he saw it for what it was – froth. Not for the first time did Lincoln wonder if he hadn't found himself at the receiving end of Michael's deception. While he envisioned life in Panama for them and LJ, something entirely different was getting his little brother through the hard day's arduous nights.

The government's way of saying sorry, the compensation for the wrongful conviction and all the attempted executions, in and out of prison, should come in in a few weeks (the fact that Agent Spencer mentioned it three times without providing an exact date infuriated him further). No one had so far specified the exact amount, but he suspected it would be more than he and his brother had ever seen, DB Cooper's bounty included. He'd use it to open something down in Panama. He used to think it would be a shop with diving equipment, but now it sounded like too much work, filling in orders, doing inventory. A bar, maybe. He'd keep open beers by his side, overlooking the pristine beaches. It would be an easy life after he had beaten the odds so many times. A few millions wouldn't make it okay, but they would make it easier.

What Lincoln also suspected was that his brother didn't care about the money whatsoever. The sole thought of Michael and the end of the case sent another ripple down his forehead.

He glanced over at him and saw a mask he had observed too many times to count in the last four years. Michael's posture was perfectly straight, not a bead of sweat on his forehead, his face void of any identifiable expression. The only marker of life was his eyes, laser-focused on Agent Spencer, and the intensity clearly unnerved her.

She looked like a trust fund baby, it suddenly occurred to Lincoln. She should have studied something completely useless, like art history or literature of some obscure period. Never do anything with it; marry well, raise babies. Someone like her shouldn't be getting into their atrocious mess.

Michael waited patiently for her to finish or at least run out of steam. He was polite like that, and Lincoln still didn't know where it came from. But as soon as she mentioned the closing of the case, Lincoln knew there was no way in hell Michael would let her go on. He groaned and rubbed his head in frustration again before Michael even opened his mouth to say the name Lincoln knew was never off his mind.

"Sara Tancredi," Michael said resolutely, tapping his fingertips on the desk the way he always did when considering something. Lincoln cursed under his breath, and if either of them heard him, they disregarded it.

"Excuse me?" Agent Spencer said in that cloying voice that made his blood boil almost as much as his little brother's refusal to just let the fuck go, even after all these years.

"Sara Tancredi," Michael repeated with the same resolve, "you need to find her. You can't close the case without bringing her home."

The agent's eyes vacillated between the two of them, apparently at loss for words. Did she even read the notes on their case before walking in, Lincoln wondered. She could at least google them, they were all over Wikipedia. There was a special section speculating about the nature of the relationship between his brother and the prison doc (it had been years, but her name was still something he made sure to avoid).

"But I thought she was dead," Agent Spencer slowly said, flipping to the final pages of the file in front of her. "Here. She received the posthumous pardon, together with the two of you. And her medical license has been reinstated, as per the conditions you set before you agreed to take on the Scylla Project."

Her words made the rage in him swell. The Scylla Project. She made it sound like they were in a fucking art class. Lincoln clenched his fists so tight his knuckles turned white and the nails nearly drew blood. He barely stopped himself from getting up, grabbing the chair that fucking creaked and trashing it on the table until it was nothing more than a pile of unrecognizable plastic pieces.

"He means her body," he said point blank, knowing his brother could never utter the word himself, much less admit to anyone, and especially himself, that the undertaking was looking for a needle in the haystack. In fact, with Mahone six feet under and the other guy never having been identified, it was absolutely hopeless. If the video was anything to go by – and it spoke volumes, as much as Lincoln wanted to silence them –, they probably made sure there was no body to ever be found, just to perpetuate the torment.

While he could understand his brother's feelings in theory, they were completely incomprehensible to him in practice, perhaps intentionally. He flashed back to the panic he had felt when Michael didn't show up at Bolshoi Booze, the meeting point he himself had designated. There was a trio of men waiting for Michael with him, none of whom Lincoln knew. Two hours in, their glances at each other weren't stealthy anymore, and he didn't need to speak Spanish to catch the irritation permeating their rapid exchanges. He watched the greenless grass that somehow managed to survive in the dry desert waltzing with the wind, perfectly aware that he was in dire straits.

From what he gathered, these were the people supposed to get them over the border. What he knew for sure was that they didn't believe him when he insisted he had no clue why his brother wasn't there. Three hours after Michael's promised arrival, one of the men kicked his lower legs; when he was on his knees, someone placed their forearm across his throat, restricting his breathing. The leader (who had four brothers, two of whom were behind bars. For some inexplicable reason this irrelevancy never escaped Lincoln's recollections) demanded he tell him where some chemicals were, as if Lincoln actually had struck around school long enough to have a fucking idea what he was talking about, the guy pointing a gun between his eyes, threatening to pull the trigger.

"I don't know," he kept repeating until there was no more air left in his lungs and he couldn't recognize his voice anymore.

They dragged him inside the dilapidated shed and tied up his hands. Kneeling in the darkest corner, he listened to their raised voices under the scorching sun and alternated between fearing for his life and wondering what was keeping his brother from coming. When the man in charge walked back in, his gun glowing behind his belt despite the encompassing darkness, he realized his brother's potential demise tormented him more than his impending doom.

"Listen, man, I swear I …" he started again, his voice painfully hoarse.

"I don't give a shit," the man rebuffed him, reaching behind his belt while striding toward him. Lincoln found himself yearning he had died in Fox River that dreadful day, after those tearful goodbyes. That there was no last-second phone call, that someone hadn't pushed the envelope under the judge's door. Strapped to the chair like an animal and feeling the volts of electricity destroying him until he was no more, at least Veronica and Michael would be the last thing he ever saw.

The man grabbed a knife Lincoln hadn't discerned and cut the rope around his wrists. He looked up at the man with vulnerable surprise, thinking Michael must have showed up at last.

"Tell your brother the deal's off," the man said before turning on his heels and walking out. Lincoln hurried after him as soon as his legs, still in disbelief that there wasn't a bullet lodged in his skull, could carry him. As his eyes adjusted to the sun, he saw two of the men get in the car in which they had arrived, the remaining one already seated behind the wheel of Lincoln's car.

"Hey, what the fuck," he shouted, starting towards his ride. "You can't just leave me here!"

The only response he got was another gun pointed at him. His legs gave way, and he collapsed onto the arid ground, watching the cars disappear in a cloud of dust. After a minute, he reached for his phone, only to remember the boss had taken it when he arrived.

He put his head between his knees, taking deep breaths. They were supposed to be halfway to freedom by now. Michael had told him so. Bolshoi Booze, the last time we'd ever stand on American soil. Ironically, the soil cracked from the lack of rain may indeed be a place his feet would touch last. He had no car, no means of calling for help; there was no water in the shed and no one knew where the fuck he was.

Except for Michael.

And it didn't look like Michael was showing up.

His eyes surveyed his purlieus again, as if hoping for something to magically spring out of the dead ground. The past two mornings he had actually let himself believe freedom was in the palm of their hands. He had said goodbye to his son, promising to get in touch as soon as he got to Panama. Michael had been off, taking care of the final preparations before meeting up at Bolshoi Booze. He hadn't thought of asking what it was. What was he thinking?

You gotta have faith, he reminded himself.

Bullshit.

Faith had never made him anything but more faithless.

He started thrashing around, just because it was the only thing he could do. His hands found a loose board, pulled it hard enough for the rust-consumed nails to give way. He barely registered specks of blue paint spattered on the board, indicating the shed used to be someone's pride, that there used to be life here.

The board, weakened by the unforgiving heat, fell apart when his wrath was still unsettled. The splinters stuck into the rough skin of his hands, and dust he had disturbed irritated his throat. A dry cough brought tears to his eyes. He couldn't even make things fall apart by his own volition anymore, he thought.

The feel of wetness on his face that wasn't sweat awoke a new round of rage. This time he kicked. The shed swayed under his force. More dust rose when he stomped his feet. Just before the disused construction would collapse for once and for all, he halted. The fact that he was now covered in sweat from head to toe brought him satisfaction completely out of place amidst the hopelessness he faced.

Time passed, but he had no means of tracking it. The sun had moved, providing him with mitigating shade. He tried to estimate how long it had taken him to reach the shed from the nearest town. He might retrace his drive on foot come nighttime. It was the only plan he could think of.

Something resembling a sound of a car engine caught his attention. Lincoln kept still, aware he had nowhere to go and nothing to fight with. He squinted, more dust being the first thing he spotted. Was it them, returning to finish off what they had recklessly let behind, he wondered. They should have saved their bullets for someone wiser than him; after his thoughtless outburst, his clothes were soaked with what was supposed to sustain his body for a little longer. He couldn't have much to go now unless the weather changed.

When the car came to a stop in front of him and his brother stepped out, Lincoln closed his eyes, unsure whether to sigh with relief or convulse with fury. But when Michael only leaned on the car door without explanation or a single fucking word, anger was opted for without his conscious consent.

"Where the fuck were you?" he shouted, and his throat still ached. He got up and, god, he could feel the damn dust everywhere. "We were supposed to be on our way to Panama by now! They almost killed me when you didn't show up!"

Michael didn't respond. He wasn't even looking at him, or at anything at all, really. His eyes were blank, and Lincoln noted how utterly exhausted, no, shattered, he looked.

"What happened, man?" he forced himself to strip his voice of anger. The question made Michael's shoulders slump in a manner that frighteningly resembled defeat. He looked down, his forehead furrowed and his mouth opened and then closed again, as though he had to remind himself to inhale.

Worry firmly replaced anger in Lincoln. Worry. The only fucking feeling he hated more than anger. With fear, he figured, you at least can do something with. Fucking face it. But worry just lingers, undefined and impossible to challenge.

He prepared himself for the worst, without knowing what the worst could possibly be. They had missed their chance to get away – what could have the power to eclipse their freedom?

"They took Sara," Michael said with a sigh that would devastate Lincoln if he had any idea what his brother meant. As their eyes finally connected, it still took him a minute to make a connection; a full minute during which Michael's face assumed a stern undertone, one that perhaps eventually became permanent.

"You mean the prison doc?" Lincoln was in disbelief, but the only explanation Michael provided was the unrelenting stare. "Who took her?"

"Whoever got you convicted," Michael shrugged. "Whoever is trying to kill us."

"And you saw it on the news?" Lincoln probed.

Maybe it was dehydration keeping him in the dark. Or maybe he just couldn't believe that this had escaped him, let alone fucking existed, and that his brother, a fucking genius who left absolutely nothing to chance, was so blatantly stupid. But he should have guessed it when Michael's eyes glanced toward him without actually settling on him, the way he always reacted when afraid of brutal honesty but unwilling to lie.

"I met up with her in Gila," Michael said.

"What?" he scoffed, but Michael remained silent, as if deliberately pissing him off. "Are you telling me we are not on that plane right now because you wanted to fuck the prison doc?"

That granted him a response.

"Don't talk about her like that," Michael hissed with spite that should alarm Lincoln, for it had never been aimed at him before. But he was too far from unperturbed himself.

"What the fuck were you thinking!?" he yelled. The way his voice no longer bore any signs of having been held at a gunpoint further reassured Lincoln of his righteousness. "Her father's a fucking Governor! She must have an entire entourage behind her ass! Feds could be coming to get us right now!"

Michael resorted to silence again. He turned around and braced himself against the driver's door. Lincoln didn't know whether it was to prevent himself from lurching at him or to combat grief.

Lincoln wasn't heartless; he knew what the prison doc had done for him, what she had risked by leaving the door open, and he was aware of the consequences she had crumbled under since. He wished she hadn't gotten involved, but that was as far as his remorse went. He was too close to death too many times to fall apart about someone who had a governor for a father. She'd be fine; there would be people in unlimited number and with unrestricted access looking for her. No one could advocate for him like that. He had to be his own number one.

Michael never put himself first, of course. He always felt things so fucking deeply, always felt the need to save others. Lincoln knew he would have been dead by now had it not been so; what an irony would it be if, in the end, his demise would be a result of Michael's savior complex extending to include the prison doc as well.

He prayed it was only an exaggerated gratitude. If it was anything else, Lincoln knew they were headed for trouble. She was a governor's daughter and they were the two most wanted men in America. As trivial as this may be in Michael's eyes – god forbid it was their eyes –, it was a fucking suicide mission. And no way was Lincoln to watch it unfold.

"Let's just go back to town," Lincoln sighed and walked to the passenger's door. Getting in, he spotted a paper bag on the back seat.

"Water, thank god," he said, reaching for it with his every cell acutely crying for at least a drop.

"Don't touch that," Michael stopped him just a before he could give his body a respite.

"I haven't drunk anything since morning," he protested.

"We'll stop at the gas station," Michael said, starting the engine.

"And what is wrong with that water?" Lincoln pressed, his indignation rising just to swallow the fear.

"I said we'll stop on the way."

"So you spent the day looking for her, then?" he asked, more out of a need to distract himself from knowing water was right there than out of genuine interest.

"I don't know where they took her to," Michael's voice suddenly got quiet, his eyes fixed on the road. Lincoln rubbed his head in vexation. Would anything ever go according to the plan? He couldn't think of one thing that hadn't gotten derailed in one way or another since they commenced their escape. He got shot. Veronica died. They lost Westmoreland's money. The plane came and left. He was sure Michael had backup plans in case something went awry. It was doubtful, though, that he had foreseen fucking everything going to shit.

"How are we getting to Panama now?"

Something about his question made Michael laugh. There wasn't a tinge of joy his tone, though; it was a laugh of a desperate man, of someone out in the open, with a target on their back and their hands tied. He would have been better off dying in Fox Prison, Lincoln thought again. How many people would have still been alive and not held captive if it wasn't for him. There was absolutely nothing about him worthy of such sacrifices.

"I just told you someone took Sara and I don't know how to find her," Michael said, and thank god he was staring through the passenger's window because he rolled his eyes so much the eye sockets actually hurt. They were sitting ducks without any minutiae resembling a plan, and his brother, his brother who never acted in accordance with anything but his reason, was losing his shit because of some chick. "And the only concern of yours is whether we are still going to Panama. How do you do that, Linc? You would've still been in Fox River if it wasn't for Sara. She risked everything for you."

"Don't try to make me believe she did it because of me," he shot back.

"If I told you that, yes, I do have a plan," Michael went on, "would you do it? Would you just go while someone had her, doing things to her, because of us?"

"You and I both know there is no need for me to entertain this possibility since we don't have a plan," Lincoln said, just as Michael pulled over at the gas station. He was out of the car before it stopped. The biggest shitstorm was of course still imminent at that point, but the force with which he shut the door was probably the first crack in their then newly-established relationship, Lincoln now mused, four years later, in an interrogation room when everything was over and unresolved.

It wasn't that they had gone back to their pre-Fox River relationship. He didn't avoid Michael's company out of the feeling of inadequacy, and Michael wasn't filled with ill-concealed contempt for his brother's continuous failure to make something out of himself. Their hotel rooms were adjacent, they shared their meals, and if they happened not be in each other's visual field, they constantly made sure the other was okay. Everyone told them they wished they had such a good rapport with their siblings, and no one suspected there was an abyss between them.

Lincoln didn't deride people for their rose-colored spectacles; to be honest, he himself couldn't explain it exactly. But whenever they sat next to each other, Michael made sure there was space between them. Not enough for anyone to think anything of it, of course, but enough to prevent unnecessary contact. Then there were his shoulders, how they always faced the direction opposite of Lincoln, as if their owner subconsciously couldn't stand looking at him, yet succumbed under the perceived obligation.

They were brothers. They had gone through something extremely traumatic and completely devastating together, emerging without anything but each other. And they had done it all for each other, because of the lengths they would go for one another in extremis. To disjoint their paths now, when they could finally greet the sunrise without fearing they wouldn't live to see the sunset, would be disdainful to everyone left dead in the wake of their dysfunctionality.

He may not give a shit about decorum, but Michael was bent on doing the right thing. It was just one more of his qualities whose origins were a total mystery to Lincoln. He'd resign to a life with his brother, without giving it a second thought and regardless of blaming him for his greatest pain, all in the name of appropriateness.


	3. Chapter 3

Lincoln couldn't believe he was back here, at the Agency's headquarters, voluntarily, when the sun was already setting and it was hours after the interviews had ended for a day.

They hadn't gotten far. Michael was going over his plan for escaping Fox River and their subsequent run towards Panama (nitroglycerin was the chemical compound that had almost gotten him killed in the New Mexico desert, Lincoln realized. It even sounded malicious). There wasn't much Lincoln could add. After about an hour, he excused himself and escaped the smell of coffee, only to camp around a vending machine three doors down. Throwing coins (now he always had coins, he mused. While on the run and working with the government, his pockets were brimming with banknotes, brand new, their worth more than what he had ever owned before. Now wherever he went, there was the jingling in his pockets, making him feel like he again had nowhere to go and no idea what to have for dinner) into the coffee vending machine, he was blowing the steam off with the intensity he wished he could apply to his life as well.

He didn't need a fucking shrink (though Agent Spencer had mentioned one will be provided for him should he ask so) to tell him why he needed to be out of that room so badly. Michael had had a glamorous life before he sacrificed it all for him. A job that paid more than Lincoln could ever make on the right side of the law; an apartment that made him feel wickedly important merely for knowing someone who could afford it; a revered position in the most prestigious firm in Chicago, with a career trajectory going nowhere but up, so steeply it made his older brother dizzy with pride; his sprawling community work could almost eclipse Lincoln's extensive rap sheet.

All that was and may one day be Lincoln had taken away from Michael the day he walked into the parking garage with intent to take a man's life. He may not have pulled a trigger; he might not have done so even if Steadman's eyes were still lustrous with life as they faced each other, but did it matter? Did his innocence truly mean anything if his intentions were all but innocuous?

After he and Michael turned in the last Scylla card, he was exonerated. In no official records was he still referred to as a murderer, but countless people were listed as dead and their blood was indisputably, invisibly on his hands. It wasn't the agents sent to execute him that he lamented; his heart did shudder at the thought of the children, the families they had left behind, but they had chosen their careers. They had consciously picked up a gun each day, with no harness keeping them from killing, slaughtering. He and his brother, on the other hand, hadn't.

Lincoln had always been skilled at rationalizing his actions, in eliminating the emotional aspect whenever possible. All the men he killed with a direct action of his hands undoubtedly deserved it. Perhaps, he sometimes caught himself thinking, it was his arrogance convincing him so. Maybe if he thought of his killings as self-defense, there would be no need to admit that while proving his innocence, he turned into a ruthless killer.

The only merciful component of his actions was perhaps that his brother hadn't needed to pull the trigger. He failed Michael too many times to count and desolately believed he wasn't done disappointing him, but at least he saved his brother's soul from this particular burden. However, the truth they never spoke of was that Michael would have done it, had the right person faced the barrel of his gun. With Mahone having met his deserved end before their learning of his whereabouts and the other man vanishing into thin air, Michael had no one to kill but himself, over and over again.

Sometimes Lincoln wondered if it wasn't a blessing in disguise. His brother was no murderer (but he was no bank robber, a con, a burglar either, Lincoln grimly reminded himself). While revenging Sara's death – and everything else they had done to her – would bring him initial solace, the gain would be annihilated by the loss of himself he would face in the long term.

Michael and Agent Spencer walked out of the interrogation room before Lincoln could reenter it. There were still a couple of sips left in his third cup of tasteless slush when the door opening made him curse under breath. He hurried towards them.

"I was just about…" he started, beads of sweat again reigning on his forehead.

"Oh, no worries, Mr. Burrows," Agent Spencer beamed at him. His fingers fumbled with the coffee cup, and he waited for her to point out that the coffee she had offered actually had a flavor, not to mention was free. "You wouldn't be able to contribute much today, anyway."

Now that there was no one to beat up, no one's death to take on his shoulders, he truly was of no use to his brother anymore, Lincoln thought. He watched Michael pensively tightening the band of the wristwatch, something he did a lot when it was just the two of them. The truth was, there was nothing Lincoln could undertake instead of his brother to make up for the biggest loss he had caused him, and they both knew it.

Fucking propriety.

Now he was back here, white stairs under his feet feeling like smoldering lava and the setting sun reminding him of the tropics. There was absolutely no need for him to be doing this, he repeated to himself, for what must be the hundredth time. He had said no to Michael's invitation to lunch, opting for walking along the Potomac River, as if it could offer him nepenthe or at least a solution. It took him two packs of cigarettes (and now back to smoking as well, he sighed. He was resorting to his pre-Fox River ways with a speed of sound) to gather enough courage to wait for Agent Spencer.

He snorted when he realized how alike this was to his first date with Veronica. He was thirteen, waiting for her in front of the library (in hindsight, it was glaringly obvious how too good she was for him), and his slippery palms were an embarrassment that brought about another round of sweat. He longed for a cigarette then, too, but was determined to at least try to look presentable (the palms, he decided, were out of his control). Bad breath must be a turn-off, he figured.

Veronica had died for his freedom, for her unwavering faith in him. If she had avoided that bullet, she would be ashamed of what he had turned into, he thought. He was failing her, just as he was failing Michael. The least he could do was tell the agent what she needed to hear to close their fucking case, yet would never, ever get out of his brother.

If Agent Spencer was surprised to see him, she didn't let it manifest on her face. Clutching a light purple folder to her chest (even the colors she apparently liked he found annoying), she paused on top of the stairs before descending towards him. It gave him enough time to extinguish a cigarette and throw it into a bin. If there was something improved in comparison with the days before the nightmare started, he at least wasn't littering anymore.

"Mr. Burrows," she greeted him. "Back for the coffee from the vending machine?"

"Look, there's some things I need to tell you," he said with an urgency that made him wish the cigarette was still between his lips. "For your write up or whatever you are doing. I don't want any recording or some shit like that in my face, ok? And I'll say it only once."

"Well, I guess the work you have done these past four years does grant you a right to be a bit picky," Agent Spencer laughed. She offered him a talk in the park, but he opted for her car. Ironically, a body in a car had set the whole ordeal in motion, yet in the years since, Lincoln started seeing cars as a haven. Sure, there had been car chases and car crashes; he had been handcuffed in more than one police vehicle and the suffocating silence had been the third passenger in more cars than he could remember, but with car keys in his hand, Lincoln could always get away. The hope the car represented to him outweighed the struggles it had imposed on him.

"So, I presume you want to talk about Miss Tancredi?" Agent Spencer went straight to the point once the car doors were shut. The mention of the name he still couldn't say out loud, even after four fucking years, made him reach for the cigarettes in the pocket of his jeans. After all, the shit he had shouldered before Fox River had nothing on the cesspool he was drowning in now.

"You mind?" he said, his fingers suddenly fumbling with the lighter.

"I would prefer if you didn't," she told him, then nevertheless leaned toward the window on his side. As she did so, a smell of something he could only characterize as pink (pink as her nails. What agent has pink nails, Lincoln snorted) invaded his nostrils. "But, if you absolutely must, open the window."

"Thanks," he said, inhaling deeply. "And, yeah, you're right. It's about… her. Have you and Michael…"

"No, we are still talking about his plan."

"Yeah. Look, he, um… there are something things you won't get out of him. And, um, I just want this to be over. So I guess I have to be the one to tell you."

"I would appreciate that."

"Yeah. So you know they met up in Gila, right?"

"And she was kidnapped there, yes."

"We were supposed to fly out to Panama that day. I was waiting for him, but he didn't show up in time. Only later did he tell me about her. Apparently, he had arranged for her to come with us, I don't know. I lost my shit, man. And he was out of his mind, just driving around, searching, all fucking day. I told him what if she just changed her mind, you know? I was sure her father had her picked up. Michael wouldn't hear about it. That was before I knew about… He kept repeating that they had her. We had the FBI, The Company, Bellick, god knows whom else on our trail and he was just… God knows how long we'd be in that fucking town if it wasn't for…"

"What happened?" she said after he had taken one puff too many to hide his stalling.

"Our dad showed up."

"Aldo? There's no note of that in your files."

"Yeah. You'll see why. Anyway, he said doc's father had evidence that could exonerate me. And then Michael just pulled out this key. He said she had found it on her father's body – that was the first I heard about him dying – and somehow my brother got it. I guess she gave it to him, I don't know. I never asked what they were up to in Gila. But he was sure it was it. Then Mahone showed up. Dad got shot and he, um. We buried him there. I think Michael told you we want him reburied in Chicago? Then we got picked up by Mahone and it was Kellerman that got us out."

"Yes, I am familiar with that part of the narrative," Agent Spencer said. "Then you went to Montana, right?"

Perhaps she studied our file after all, Lincoln thought.

"Eventually, yeah. Kellerman was our inside man. He told us Steadman was still alive. We discovered that the key opened a locker in this club in Chicago. So we went there and found a USB key. It was a recorded conversation between President Reynolds and her brother after he supposedly died. You must have heard it. We drove to Montana to take pictures of him to, um, you know. Have more proof. And after that, all hell broke loose."

"Mr. Steadman committed suicide."

"That wasn't it. That was after we already had all the evidence we needed. Michael, um, he wanted to give the tape to the Company, in exchange for her. Kellerman said that he was a fool if he thought that the Company would play fair, regardless of the stakes. I agreed. More because I just wanted to release the tapes and have it all over with than because I thought his words had any merit. Then that motherfucker put a gun in his mouth and everything was just red. We cleaned it up, and when Michael was out of earshot, Kellerman said that we needed to get those tapes out on TV if any of us wanted to be free ever again. And I said yes. I knew Michael would never let him do it, not when they had her, so, um… we did it behind his back. And we didn't tell him about it. He didn't know until it was all over the news."

"I imagine he must have been very upset."

"Not in a way you'd imagine. He didn't yell or hit me or stormed off or anything. He just…. Looked at me, stared for what felt like ages. It wasn't anger, or sadness. Just… disappointment. That after everything I dared to betray him like that. I knew where he was coming from, of course, but I was just so sure it was the right thing to do."

He remembered dozens of excuses that ran through his mind as he stared back at his brother, basking in his judiciousness. Think of LJ, he wanted to shout. He lost his mother, for fuck's sake! These tapes could make sure he doesn't lose his father and uncle as well, that he could have a normal life! That we could all be free. And once the Company's deeds are exposed, they will certainly release the doc, just to avoid one charge hanging over their heads. She would be of no more value to them. She's a daughter of a fucking governor! Everyone in America will want her free. This will end everything!

He had said none of these things out loud. Perhaps, he wondered now, it had been as early as then that he stopped believing a single one of them. Maybe it was his mind just playing tricks with him, making him believe it could all end with a couple of fucking tapes. After years of seemingly irrefutable accusations, after countless appeals to allegedly objective bodies, that something as simple as a recorded conversation could end it all. Considering the reality of his situation, the inescapability of the fate forced upon him, who could blame him for wanting a respite, no matter how silly? In hindsight, he had been fucking insane.

Michael remained silent when their tape just … disappeared. The Company made sure any talk of it ceased with the first broadcast. A day later, a leading newspaper published an expert's opinion that the tape was forged, and America forgot all about the scandalous allegations after an emotional speech their president made. She fondly remembered her brother, how he had nursed injured birds back to health and how the two of them had once forgotten about milk boiling and spent their summer working around the neighborhood to pay for a new stove. If anyone still happened to consider the tape as possible truth, their thoughts were derailed when Boston was hit by a terrorist attack. A bomb in a mall that claimed almost a hundred lives rendered the blabber of two escaped convicts irrelevant; the subsequent hunt for the terrorist pushed them into the obscurity they hadn't emerged from for four years.

No call came to give them doc's whereabouts. She wasn't dropped off in front of their motel. Two days later, Kellerman left to get some food and never returned, apparently opting to fight his former employee on his own. The following day, Michael told him they had to leave for Panama. Lincoln didn't ask about the plan, nor did he offer an apology for having leaked the tapes behind his back. In his mind, he had done the right thing. The futile outcome didn't make it any less right, he kept telling himself. Back then, he actually believed it.

They were on the road for less than a day when a black SUV drove in front of their car, forcing Lincoln to stop. Before he could put in reverse, two men dressed in black, with black masks as a carapace of their faces, got out and pulled the two brothers out of their car. Cloths they put on their mouths were soaked in something that made them pass out, and when they came around an indefinite amount of time later, they were seated in a small room, with hands tied behind their backs. Michael had woken before him, watching as Lincoln drowsily took in his environment.

"Where the fuck are we?" Lincoln said, his voice once again unrecognizable to him.

"I don't know," Michael said. "There must be a million rooms with their shutters closed in America."

If there was ever an inappropriate time for his brother's sarcasm, it was then, but Lincoln realized he was in no position to argue. He let his eyes adjust to the dark, but he still couldn't make out a fucking thing. He was sure Michael had no such issues. He had probably discerned fucking nails keeping shutters in place. It wasn't risible to think he had already thought of a way out. Before Lincoln could let himself ask, a door somewhere behind their backs opened and a man appeared in front of them.

They were so good at messing up the Company's plans, he told them, the Company wanted them to do something for them. There were cards with a name Lincoln had never heard before and they needed them. Considering Scofield's talent at breaking out, he must know a thing or twenty about breaking in as well.

"No," Michael was stern. He had been repeating it for fifteen minutes before the first threat aimed at LJ came. Lincoln cursed and would vehemently scream yes if he was held with anyone but his brother. His brother was a fucking genius, after all. He must have thought of a way out.

The sternness somewhat diminished, but it wasn't what the man was after.

"Then I guess I'll have to show to the two of you why it is better to work with us rather than against us," he said, exiting the room.

Lincoln was left pondering what exactly the man meant. Somehow he could never make a connection when the prison doc was in the equation. He wondered sometimes whether that made him a brutal or a broken man.

It was Michael's face that made him realize what was likely to follow; the way his body convulsed, trying to find a way to untie the rope cutting into his wrist, the sheer horror on his face that had been so expressionless these days.

When the man returned, he was pushing a gurney with a TV on it in front of him. He wasn't alone. The man following him brought two large, and as it turned out, extremely powerful lights. He placed one to the left of the two brothers and the other to their right. Then he was out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

The first man squatted in front of them. If he was blind to the details of the room, his face Lincoln could see perfectly. In the following years, he pictured him in his recollections plenty of times without forgetting a single feature.

"I'm gonna ask you one more time. Are you sure you don't want to work for us?"

This time it was Lincoln that said yes.

"Just remember, I didn't force this on you," the man said, then got up and turned on the two lights. Lincoln could swear he had never seen anything as bright. Only by looking forward, to the television, could he avoid the pain throbbing in his head.

Then the video started.

"What was on the video, Lincoln?" the agent gently asked him after he gave in to silence for a minute. He lit another cigarette.

"I'm only gonna tell you this once," he said, the hoarseness of his voice bringing back more memories of those horrible days. "I'm already seeing it all the time, there's no way I'm ever saying it again. She, um, she was tied up. Naked. Hanged by her hands like a pig to slaughter. It was dark, but it was clear what it was, you know? That it was her? You couldn't miss that hair anywhere. There were two men. Mahone and, um, another one. He never showed his face to the camera. That's why Michael never found out who he was. Anyway, they were, you know. I couldn't watch it, man. I turned my head, but those fucking lights were everywhere. I shut my eyes, but you could still fucking hear. But Michael, he … Fuck. He just stared at the screen, Throughout. I don't think he even blinked. Just stared. No words. Nothing. And they were talking to him. You know, about… her. That's probably why they took her. To taunt him. It just seemed to go on and on. And then, um, Mahone grabbed a knife and, yeah."

"I'm so sorry, Lincoln," the agent said, but he didn't acknowledge her.

"Once it was over, the man took out the tape, turned off the lights and left the room. He wasn't gone for a minute when Michael somehow knocked over a light. It broke and he used a shard to cut the rope. I wanted to say something, but what the fuck can you say? It was crazy. He… he said we were getting out of there. That was the only thing he said and he was just so…. Calm. Fucking calm. I don't know. He must have been out of it, you know? He untied me and went to the window. I don't even know how he opened it. And we were out. We stole the first car we saw, then parked in an alley and just… waited. I thought he had arranged for someone to pick us up. He didn't say a thing. But at night, he, um. He went back to where we were held. Broke in to get the tape. Destroyed it. Threw it into the river so that no one would ever find it."

"Can't say I blame him for it."

"Then we were headed back south. But something was off. He never said anything – I swear he never talked –, but somehow I figured we weren't going to Panama anymore. And then we were picked up again, by Agent Self. He said he worked with our dad and had a handwritten note to prove it. He said that in exchange for bringing down the Company, finding Scylla, we would be exonerated. And we agreed. But that is in your files, Agent Spencer."

"Thank you for telling me," the agent said.

"I'm not proud of leaking those tapes, you know," words left him before he could stop them. Perhaps LJ had been right in claiming it would do him good to say this stuff out loud. But LJ had also become infatuated with an idea of doing voluntary work in India recently, after having spent time with his uncle, and his uncle didn't appear to be doing any better. "I'm not a monster. But I just wanted it to be over. I had my son to think of. They killed his mother and I was all he had left. I really thought that by releasing that video to the public, it would all be over. I would be exonerated, whatever, and LJ could come live with me and have a normal life. If I had known they'd just bury it and do what they had…"

"It was an impossible situation, Mr. Burrows. There was no right or wrong decision to be made. Any decision could lead to a perfect resolution or a cataclysm. You did what you genuinely thought was best, with the best of intentions."

"Maybe, but I still made it behind his back."

"You did it for your son. His nephew. I'm sure your brother understands that. He's a compassionate man."

"I just wish he… it's been four years. Yet he acts like it happened yesterday. I'm not saying he should forget or anything, because I fucking can't and I didn't even… It's killing him, you know. It's gonna kill him. And I can't just watch it happen. He's my brother."

"Condoning his way of grieving is not the same as being there for him, Mr. Burrows. I am sure your brother does not like you smoking, but lets it be," Agent Spencer told him, just as he was about to reach for another cigarette. "Do you ever think of the consequences of your brother's plan? It wasn't just Sara that lost her life. Mr. Hudson. Mr. Westmoreland. Mr. Tweener. Mr. Geary. Everyone Mr. Bagwell killed while out. That's a lot of deaths for any person to make peace with. And I've read in Mr. Scofield's psych evaluation that he is prone to emotional identification with various subjects."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"I don't know. I told you, I read it in his file. What I'm saying is that while your brother was certainly aware that his plan to break you out could potentially end in a loss of life, he likely didn't predict he could have a hand in deaths of so many individuals. And for someone with the psychological traits that he possesses, dealing with the aftermath is probably more arduous than it would be for you, for instance."

"Are you saying I'm heartless?"

"No. Just that you deal with loss in a different way. From what I understand, you suffered a loss very similar to your brother's."

"That's different. Me and Veronica knew each other since we were kids," his defensive tone surprised him.

"The amount of time you spend with someone does not dictate your feelings toward them, Mr. Burrows," Agent Spencer said, turning in her seat to face him. "Have you ever considered that his grief is not only directed at Sara? That in a way Sara has come to represent all the lives lost in the last four years? Because dealing with each death individually would prove too emotionally demanding for him? So he's transferred all his grief on one person only, Miss Tancredi."

"If you're implying this is why my brother cares for Sara, you are an idiot," he told her, and the indignation at this woman (whose nails were pink and who so gallingly referred to everyone as a Mr. or a Miss, as if they were in a fucking school or something) merely insinuating that his brother felt anything but love for the prison doc made him completely overlook her name escaping his lips.

"All I'm saying is that you shouldn't let the Company win, Mr. Burrows."

"They're all in prison or dead. Krantz is awaiting execution," Lincoln stated what he found to be obvious. "It's over."

The agent shook her head.

"That's not the win I have in mind. Don't let the consequences of their actions – or yours – drift you and your brother apart, You've been through too much to lose each other now when you most need one another. Because you may think it is over, Mr. Burrows, but what you have survived, it won't ever end."

*

He met his little brother for breakfast the following morning.

The words Agent Spencer had spoken riled his mind throughout the night. It must be the lack of sleep still making him just think about it, he figured.

"Michael, are we okay?" he nevertheless asked.

Michael's eyes shoot up neither in surprise nor reassurance. He stayed focused on folding a crane out of the paper napkin, just like he had been doing since his big brother taught him how.

"You're my brother. Of course we are okay," he finally said, his voice indicating his thoughts were dedicated to the perfection of the origami. But Lincoln knew his fingers worked in reflex by now and that the words were carefully pondered on and chosen.

"God damn it, Michael. I don't want us to be okay just because we're fucking brothers."

If there was a response Michael decided on, it was rendered unnecessary when the TV above their hands announced there had been a plane crash somewhere in Europe that resulted in a major loss of life. As helicopter footage showed the smoldering wreckage of what used to be such a magnificent feat of engineering, Lincoln could swear it was shaped just like the fucking origami his brother was working on.


	4. An Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone reading! :)  
> The next chapter should be up sometime this weekend.

The last four years Michael Scofield had spent in more motel rooms than he could, or dared to, remember. They blended together in their indistinctiveness, a trivial backdrop to the glaring purpose of his stays. Frankly, it didn't matter to him where he returned to every night after having spent a day decoding the mystery of Scylla with detached vigor. His brain was wired to notice the patterns of the wallpaper, compare the shapes of nightstands, count the spots on the carpeted floor, but his mind was too preoccupied to care about the color of the bedspread or the number of TV channels. Whatever it was, he still fell asleep to identical images residing on his eyelids, and it wasn't the morning sun that awoke him, regardless of the direction the window faced.

Now he was sitting on the bed, watching the last sunrays of the day slowly disappearing. The hotel room Agent Spencer had arranged for him was an aberration that for some reason constricted his lungs. It was the closest he had been to his pre-Fox River life in years. The room was spacious, overlooking a river, and furnished in a minimalistic way he would appreciate if a lack of stimuli was something his mind could benefit from. Now the respite Agent Spencer probably thought she had given him was a slow-burning torture he should have extinguished when he first felt it creeping on.

He knew what he should do the moment the door had closed behind him. Pick up a book and read it in a ridiculously short time. Turn on a television, pick a foreign channel and try to decipher the message. Find a pencil and adumbrate a building with the idiosyncratic exterior and curlicued interior, something inane enough to keep him focused. He had been through it countless times these past four years, had learned to recognize the triggers and mastered the skill of ignoring it. He let it engulf him without resistance every time, pull him under the currents where he belonged.

Was there a part of him that enjoyed it? The muffled screams, the loudest thing he had ever heard? The piercing laugh, the only thing that got his heart racing these days? The movement of the hand, reaching its goal the way he never would?

He definitely deserved it. He had taken lives, the life that mattered most to him, yet he was a free, lauded man. There would never be an indictment that included her name read to him, a pair of handcuffs cutting into his wrists with the wrath of her undeserved fate. He knew that replaying her end would never grant him absolution, but he would not stop trying. It was a bullet he would have taken for her if given a chance. It was a cudgel made of all the broken promises he had made to her. The freedom he had almost given her was now suffocating him every time he thought of her.

Sometimes, when the pain numbed him and he couldn't feel any more of it, he pictured her there, with him. Somehow they had dodged salvos aimed at them, cruised through the storms they faced; now the land unknown sprawled in front of them, so full of wine they couldn't hide their smiles even if they tried. He would give her everything she wanted, everything he had. He would make her a paper flower for every day they had shared; take her out for dinner he still owed her, preceded by the cup of coffee and lunch he had offered in desperation. He would hold her in his arms in the hammock on the back deck until she fell asleep; show her Thailand and every exotic place there was a travel guide on. He would build her a house of her dreams, no matter how many sleepless nights it took; give her all the babies she wanted and one more. He would give her his name if she let him.

All he would ever ask in return was the permission to tangle his fingers in her auburn hair and pull her closer whenever the words could not sufficiently encapsulate what he felt for her. He craved the privilege of being the one bringing the smile on her face and having his life forever lit up by the sparks in her eyes. His name on her lips would be a remedy to any malady that could ever inflict him.

They may not even work out. Perhaps out in the open, without the bars caging them in, pressing them into one another, the luster would fade as the bruises he had inflicted would prove to be indelible. They could end on the golden beaches of Panama, the scent of her mixing with the ocean breeze one last time as the feel of her hand in his started to evanesce. He might watch her walk away, toward another pair of arms that were untarnished by the torturous past.

He would never know.

They had been denied the chance of ever finding out if it was meant to be.

But what he was sure of, she wouldn't want him to crumble like he did every time he was alone. She would sit down next to him, wrap her fingers around his forearm the way she had once upon a time in the psych ward, and with the grace he didn't deserve, she would absolve him of guilt. He had done what he could, she would assure him. She didn't blame him. As much as she had risked for him, he reciprocated when he had sent her the cranes guiding her to Gila. What he had competed against was something no man could ever eclipse; and while he, Michael Scofield, was a man of incredible strength, acumen, and bravery, he was only human.

He wondered if he would ever believe it.

On bad days, he reminded himself that he had barely known her. They had less than two months' worth of each other in their crest of memories. The majority of time they had shared he spent in the blue that wasn't of his choosing, and the freedom of her colors made her irresistible. Every time he had touched her welcoming skin under the cover of the New Mexican night, the pain in his arm reminded him of the peril the sunrise would bring. He refused to listen, so arrogant in the conviction of his brilliance, so selfish in his need to have her. Each sensation was an answer to a question he hadn't known he had and he relished in the silence filled with the warmth of two bodies that cried for comfort. If one was to dismantle the proscription of their contact, the mortal danger of the afternoon, would anything remain? Was what he had felt and resolved to never let go a mere amplification brought about by the thrill of never knowing if there was one more tomorrow in their book?

He would never believe that.

The reaction he anticipated didn't keep him waiting. His breaths became shallow as if something more than just his mind was running. Sweat flooded down his face and the throbbing in his head blurred his vision. He tottered toward the window and opened it before collapsing against the wall. Drawing up his knees, he leaned his chin on the knees and closed his eyes. The wind cooled his burning skin, and just as his breathing started to return to normal, there was a knock on the door.

He held his breath, as if it could make whoever it was go away.

The second knock made it clear it wasn't his brother. Lincoln would be hollering his name by now.

Michael ran his hand over his scalp, wiping away the remaining sweat. His gait gained confidence with every step, and by the time he reached the door, nobody could guess he had just bathed in penance.

He was surprised to find that the sight of Agent Spencer was unexpected to him. She must have stopped by on her way home, as he recognized the clothes he wore. Once upon a time, he'd joke about making a house call; now he just noted again how widely open her eyes were, effervescing zest for life he hoped she would never lose, for her sake.

"Hello, Mr. Scofield," she greeted him in that casual manner of hers. He remembered how it annoyed Lincoln, and it was the first time that day that he cracked a smile. "I, um. You got a minute?"

The familiarity of the words felt like a delayed wave of the overbearing guilt that had hit him. He sought the haven of his wristwatch again, brushing the screen with his thumb meticulously, as if he could turn back the time and change the outcome.

"About… 15 hours' worth," he counted the hours to their next scheduled interview when he trusted his voice again.

"Sorry, right. Look, um. I just wanted to say that I hate what happened to Sara and I hate that we just sit in that dreadful room, tiptoeing around it. When I was going through the files on your case, I found some about Sara's abduction. And I know that this isn't much, but if you want, I can get you access to them? Maybe they will help you find some, I don't know, closure? Or maybe you'll see something in them no one else has. It wouldn't be the first time."

This time he didn't hide the impact her words had on him. He looked the agent in the eyes and he had to give her credit; if his look conveyed a fraction of the intensity he was feeling, most people would be perturbed by such intimacy.

"Thank you," he intoned the simple words, identical to those spoken four years ago when the fence separated him from the woman whose beauty unfolded in his eyes more and more each day.

And just like Sara had on that impossibly hot April day, the agent only nodded in response before walking away. As he closed the door again, he wondered if she knew that tonight, for the first time in years, he would have a spark to dissolve his fear of the dark


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super long chapter, I am so sorry! Obv I suck at editing.   
> Feel free to let me know what you think :)  
> Enjoy!

Of course he would show up early, Abigail Spencer sighed when she saw Michael Scofield standing at the reception desk in the Agency's lobby. The coat and tie he wore with perfect posture made him look like he was on a night out, not about to dig into grim files of death. But perhaps, she mused, it was his body armor, an assurance that he could keep the outside at bay. Her father was the same way, refusing to put on casual attire even in his downtime.

How her father would smirk if he was here, she thought. You will never make a good agent, he had wailed when he found out she had applied for the job. If you want to help people, volunteer. As soon as you are on a payroll, the collateral damage comes into play. At the time she had thought his own arrogance once again blinded him to the fact that she did know what came hand in hand with the badge. Her heart may have been beating all those years, but it hadn't made her significantly alive in her father's eyes or cares.

She shook her head to exile her father out of her mind where he had no place being.

In the elevator, they were joined by a woman and an invisible cloud of her indiscreet perfume. If Michael noticed how uncontrolled her glances in his direction were, he didn't show it. His eyes remained on his wristwatch, as if determined to count the seconds of the elevator ride. Given his reason for coming in today, Abigail wouldn't blame him if any banality was a welcomed distraction. She bit her lower lip and wondered again whether offering Michael Scofield, a man already tortured by his past, an opportunity to face his biggest demon, made her one of his tormentors.

The woman got off on the second floor. As soon as the door closed again and before Abigail could prudently check in the mirror whether her recurring doubt left a lipstick stain on her teeth, Michael inhaled so intermittently that he might as well scream out of the pain her precipitate decision had caused him.

"Why are you helping me?" he asked her, his voice barely above a whisper. She sought his eyes in the mirror, but they obstinately faced the floor.

Her father would lie. It was what he was best at, after all. Sometimes he wondered if he himself still knew what the truth was. She could lie, too – perhaps should. Michael wouldn't care, even if he saw through her words. But the reason he was here today was so personal, so heart-rending, she couldn't bring herself to lie.

"You know, I could never figure out why they gave me your case," she told him. "Scofield and Burrows. It's the biggest case of a decade, decades. Maybe there has never been a case of such magnitude. You'd think someone in the higher ranks would get it, as a thank you for your service before the retirement. And they give it to a complete rookie. I like to think they did so because the Agency is starting afresh, too. And I don't think a new start is possible when there are still unanswered questions."

She led him to a small room on the fifth floor. It was right at the end of the hallway, following half a dozen offices. The original plan had probably meant for it to be an office as well, but once the construction was finished, it ended up being a room barely big enough for a desk and a chair. They mostly used it for storage.

Michael didn't care for any of it. His attention was drawn to a brown file on the desk – or, rather, how devastatingly thin it was.

"When you said you found some files," he said, "I thought you were understating it."

"Yeah," she nodded. "I am still surprised how little there is on her, given her being a governor's daughter and all. But I guess after what happened to Bruce Bennett and with everyone focusing on the Company and Scylla …"

No one could spare time to look for her, Michael finished her words in his mind. And as the leader of the team, neither could he.

"Anyway, if you need anything …" she said, turning on her heels. She wanted to wish him good luck, just out of habit, but caught her words just in time. What kind of a monster would say something like that to a man about to search for the remains of the woman he loved?

"Actually, Agent Spencer," he stopped her just as she was about to step back in the hallway. Nothing about his light tone suggested that the following words were anything but carefully chosen, perhaps decided on before he had even walked into the building. "When you said that the case is still open, does this mean…"

"What do you need, Mr. Scofield?"

"Mahone's phone records and credit card statements," he said.

***

Her interview with Lincoln went on as usual, with the exception of his cursing her for giving his little brother access to files on Sara's abduction, and her sending him home after two hours. Perhaps this was why they had given her the case, she later mused. No one wanted to deal with Burrows' belligerent nature, and she definitely couldn't say she didn't blame them.

She checked on Michael's progress later in the day. Of course she had expected him to peruse those few pages in the file with unmatched diligence, but when she realized that one of the walls was now covered a map and another with paper clippings, she thought that Lincoln was right. What was she thinking, giving an already broken man a room and resources to deal a death blow to himself?

The map was of the part of the US stretching from New Mexico to Montana. Gila and the place where he and Lincoln had been held by the Company were circled. A line was drawn with a red pen between the two towns, and she guessed he had reconstructed Mahone's path with the help of the documents she had given him. It was only a map, of course, completely disproportionate, yet its size was enough for her to recall words Lincoln had once spoken.

Worse than looking for a needle in the haystack, he said. She had thought he was trying to protect his little brother in his typical hostile way. Now she realized he was speaking the truth.

She could be anywhere. And unless Michael could see something obscure to everyone else, none of the places along the line was more likely than the other. If the building the brothers had been taken to held any answers, they had long since turned into ash; it burned down the day after the two had escaped. If the video contained clues hidden by the unspeakable horror, they were never to be found now. Divers searched the river into which Michael had thrown the tape, but by then the currents had taken it for themselves.

She wiped the concerns off her face with a smile when he finally noticed her.

"Well, it's five o'clock," she said.

"So?" he said, his mind clearly still processing the contents of the file he was holding. Somehow he got his hands on a computer and a printer, putting them both on the desk. The printouts were on the chair, and for the first time in her life, she realized what it meant to feel claustrophobic.

"Nothing, just..." It was usually when she got off work, but what difference did time make to a man whose life had boiled down to one sole purpose? "I, um, I have something I need you to take a look at."

She handed him a book of the size she wished Sara's was as well.

"This contains all the Company's operatives, leaders, everyone we know that had ties to it. Those two men that held you and your brother. They may be in here."

There was nowhere to sit, so she slid down the closed door, facing the only wall not yet marred by the horror that had brought them together. She watched Michael as he flipped the pages, without having sat down. There were certainty and speed in the way his eyes moved from one picture to another, never lingering for more than a split second. He probably knew the features of the men he was looking for better than he knew his own.

"They are not in here," he said with harrowing blankness in his voice.

"Then we haven't put them in yet," she tried to sound encouraging, but the fucking walls were closing in on the truth. She hoped he would say something, anything, because all that was running through her mind was how sorry she was and that would be the final straw of her professionalism.

"I could never figure out why it was so easy to get away from them," Michael said. He, too, slid down the wall, the one with the map. He put the book down beside him with a thump she figured sounded a lot like the burden he carried. "They put us in the room that wasn't that high up. We could jump down without a problem. There were panels nailed to the window, but the nails weren't even fully in. I could just pull them out, you know. It was almost like they wanted us to get away."

"Actually, I'd say it makes perfect sense."

"How so?" he asked and tilted his head slightly to the right. She realized it was now adjacent to the circle marking Gila, as if symbolically showing that it was never far from his mind.

"You guys accused the President of having an incestuous relationship with her brother, on top of everything else. What better way to rebuff it than by apprehending you? If they just shot you dead in an alley, people may think they were really trying to hide something."

"I never thought about it like that," he said, and she realized he longed for another answer, the asinine one.

"Look, um. I know that you think of me as only an agent assigned to your case, but I just want you to know that if you ever want to talk to someone, you can talk to me. About anything."

"That sounds like you've missed your career path," he said.

"Sorry?"

"You should be a psychologist or something like that."

"Yeah, well. I was actually studying to be a child psychologist."

"What happened?"

"My father showed up. He was one of those child support dads. He chose his work and a woman over me and mom. I don't think he saw me a week's worth of days until I was 22. I had one semester left when… you know that rom-com trope when a guy shows up at the girl's window and it is raining? It was kind of like that. A changed man he was. He said he had been wrong, that he had just realized it was all a lie, and he wanted to make amends. Have a relationship with me. And, yeah. Out of spite, here I am. He hates that I'm an agent. He thinks it will ruin my life, just like it did his. But I want to prove to him that you can be a decent person and an agent. I want to help people, you know? Maybe I'm still an idealist for thinking that. Maybe I'm still waiting for my lesson."

"I'd say you are off to a good start," he said, tapping his fingers on the floor at each side of him. "She was to come to Panama with us."

"I know."

If her words surprised him, he didn't show it.

"We joked about our life there when I told her about the plan. How we'd have breakfast on the front deck, the sound of the ocean, fresh orange juice. That's why she went out before I woke. To get that and an ointment for a cut on my arm. I found the bag on the parking lot. She must have dropped it when…"

"It's a very silly thing, feeling guilty for falling asleep, Michael. Everyone should be able to go to a store without being abducted on the way."

"It would have never happened to her had it not been for me. Now the least I can do is find her."

***

Michael took his self-delegated obligation with seriousness that terrified both his brother and Agent Spencer. The only day he wasn't in the reception room before her (regardless of how early she left her apartment, he somehow got there first anyway) was the one day he didn't show up at all. He got on an early flight out of Dulles and landed in Chicago just before eight in the morning. It was the anniversary of Bruce Bennett's death and an annual memorial was being held. Michael was determined to attend it, just like he had the three previous ones.

Bruce Bennett died in his study less than four months after the most famous prison break in the history of Chicago. He was found slouched over in his chair by one of his assistants in the early morning. The autopsy ruled a massive heart attack as a cause of death and the subsequent investigation found no evidence of foul play. The venerable man had never made it to bed that evening and yet another bill on tax reform was the last thing he saw in life. After the murderous tentacles of the Company came to the surface and Governor Tancredi's suicide was reclassified as murder, a second autopsy was ordered, but its findings matched the initial ones. Whether it was stress, unhealthy lifestyle or simply his time, Bruce Bennett died of a heart attack.

Michael had gotten to know him a little bit before he passed. Bruce looked him and Lincoln up after that recorded conversation between then-President Reynolds and her brother was declared to be a hoax. They hadn't had long before she was taken in Gila, but Sara told him how much she trusted and appreciated Bruce. He believed her judgment with faith Lincoln frowned upon with oppressed words.

Bruce gave them a safe place to stay, money, and names of people that over time proved to be invaluable to their cause. He died before there were any tangible results of his actions, but Michael knew that without Bruce giving him and his brother a head start, the Company might finish them off first. By attending his memorials, Michael felt that he reaffirmed the role Bruce had played, a role whose importance perhaps only he truly still recognized.

There was a second reason, of course, a more willful one. In their scarce interactions, he saw so much of Sara in him that he had to shut his eyes to handle it. The same quiet strength, evident, yet never conspicuous or boastful. The unconditional will to understand; the kindness that shone particularly bright to those ignorant of how much they needed it.

The first time he had come to him, Bruce put his hand in Michael's knee and assured him that everything was going to be okay. The conviction in his voice was in such contrast with the desperation which pervaded him that he broke down after Bruce left. There was so much faith around him, so much hope for a better future, but he had seen his future, all his plans, bleed out in front of him. He couldn't let himself believe that anything would ever be okay again.

Brad Bellick picked him up at O'Hare. Who would've thought they would greet each other so cordially when Michael had entered Fox River all those years ago? When Bellick was more than just indirectly responsible for the loss of his toes and it was because of Michael that he spent a day in the hole dug up as part of the escape plan?

After Bellick was left for dead by T-Bag and had a short prison stint of his own, Agent Self suggested he join the group fighting the Company. It was an opportunity to clear his name and perhaps the closest he had ever gotten to a badge – or the mission it brings to its holder. After having worked together for over three years, Michael sent Bellick and Sucre home. They had reached the final, most dangerous stretch of their cause, and he was not to endanger any more lives. They of course fought his protestations, but eventually, Sucre returned to his family and Brad went back to Chicago. Now he had his own business working as a bounty hunter, prospering by all accounts, and for an umpteen time, he asked Michael if he wanted on the job.

"We'd be unstoppable," he assured him when the two embraced.

"Thanks," Michael said, "but I am planning on staying as far away from prisons as I can."

"Yeah, I can understand that," Bellick nodded, then lowered his voice, just as Michael had anticipated. "Any news about Sara?"

"No."

"I'm sorry, Michael. She was a good person. She didn't deserve this," Brad intoned, but he had spoken the same words a number of times and while he still meant it as much as the first time, their impact had been dwindled by the time ruthlessly passing by.

They went to the nearby diner, where Bellick offered to buy them absurdly expensive breakfast. He proceeded with a tale that saw him chase a double murderer across three states lines and resulted in a luxurious cruise for his mother.

After ten minutes, they were joined by Henry Pope. The former warden greeted them with a wide smile Michael used to think would never be directed at him again and still believed he didn't deserve. It had prompted Henry to pull him aside more than once in recent years and assure him that he harbored no hard feelings.

"What you did you did for family," he said. "God knows I failed mine too many times. I can't resent you for ending up in the middle of your plan. But it is a privilege to know that I played a part, however insignificant, in correcting the wrong."

Henry hadn't gone back to working in prison. Now he was a director of a halfway house. The pay was no match to his previous one, but he felt he could make a significant difference there than in prison. Freedom, he liked to say, was such a vague concept in prison, where surviving the day was in the foreground. Once the men were out, though, they were faced with what had put them behind bars in the first place. The idea of once again being unable to embrace the ones you loved whenever you wanted was what made most of the men he was responsible for eager to stay out.

Before Michael left for the ceremony, Pope invited him to a dinner at his house, like every time he was in Chicago, but they both knew Michael was not yet ready to accept the invitation.

The memorial was a simple affair taking place in a park in one of the poor neighborhood on the South Side. Its construction had been one of Bruce's first projects as a politician, and as the residents were proud to repeat every year, he had often returned. The first generation of kids he had met here was now grown up, with their own families, and he liked to spoil them, much to their continued gratitude and surprise. Michael mused that they had probably meant more to Bruce than they realized. Getting them a park had originally only been a project for him, an attempt to create a name for himself, to get backers of his political career. In time, they turned out to be more than a pool of voters he could count on; they were proof that he was on the right track, that his actions could directly improve people's lives.

Six rows of white chairs were placed by the magnificent oak Bruce had planted himself to mark the completion of the park decades ago. A small stage was decorated with paper lanterns that rustled in the wind and were of all colors of the rainbow. Two bunches of balloons were at each side of the stage, mimicking the lanterns' sway. Short speeches were made by leaders of the community and people who had been present when Bruce had first entered their neighborhood. Michael recognized them all by sight by now, though he doubted they remembered him. He never made an effort to introduce himself, to make himself any less of an intruder; every year he took the same seat in the back row, never always speaking to anyone.

Anyone from the community, that is.

Paul Kellerman showed up every year as well.

The first year, they didn't talk. They barely exchanged glances, the memories still too fresh to enable a conversation, no matter how scarce. By the time of the second memorial, Kellerman was pardoned for his role in the conspiracy, his confession being vital for its revelation. Somehow he got a job at the State Department, and the few words they exchanged pertained to the work they both did.

Today they could almost pass for old friends. Kellerman arrived late and out of breath.

"Sorry I'm late," he puffed, sitting down on the chair Michael had saved for him. "Just flew in. I, um, I met my daughter for dinner last night."

"I didn't know you had a daughter," Michael said as the kids' choir ascended the three steps to the stage, ready to start the ceremony.

"Yeah, well, I pretended for a long time that I didn't. I'm just getting to know her. As much as she lets me."

After the choir finished their last song and the balloons were given to the wind, the two decided to have lunch together. As the appetizers were brought, Michael realized why he didn't eschew Kellerman's presence, though he would have every reason to detest the man.

Anyone else he conversed with, the first thing they asked about was Sara. He knew that they did it out of care for him, noting the sway her fate held over him. Kellerman never alluded to her, much less brought up her name. Perhaps it was his narcissistic need to talk about himself constantly rather than an unspoken understanding the two had. Whatever the reason, the realization that he liked an occasion, however fleeting, to go by without her name spoken in someone else's voice perturbed Michael less than he would expect it to.

***

Incidentally, the one day Michael didn't show up at the Agency was the only day during their interviews that Lincoln arrived on time. it seemed like a contingency so unlikely that Abigail had let herself hit the snooze button just one more time, stop at her favorite pastry shop and read her life predictions on Buzzfeed during breakfast.

The lady at the reception desk knew Lincoln by now, and his anxious asking whether it was a habit of Agent Spencer's to be this late impelled her to send him directly to her office.

He knew why his brother wasn't coming, of course. The damn memorial, another link to the past he would be better off without. Sometimes Lincoln really did think his brother enjoyed being his own tormentor. The agent may think that going over the files and realizing there was nothing more he could have done would give him closure, but Lincoln was sure Michael would pervert it into just one more bludgeon.

At least he was making progress, though. Lincoln should probably be a little more proud of the fact that he finally decided to deal with his stress more constructively that blowing his money for cigarettes. He had been up most of the night, alternating between resisting the urge to go over to his brother's and beat some sense into him and longing for a smoke. He finally settled for counting down fucking minutes to the sunrise, and he probably broke more than one speed limit on his way here. Because as much as the fucking interviews pestered him, at least he couldn't smoke in the interrogation room.

The office was another matter altogether, clearly. There was an unopen pack in the pocket of his jeans, and regardless of where he was sitting, he could still see the fucking window.

He took out his wallet and counted the change he had finally acquired. He was on his second tasteless coffee when there was a knock on the door. An intern (who looked fucking older than Agent Spencer, Lincoln grumbly noticed) had a fax for the agent.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll give it to her," he said, fully intending on carrying out his promise. Because despite his reputation, he wasn't a liar. He did beat people up, yeah, but he never lied to them. However, after innocuously glancing at it, he threw the coffee (which was fucking tasteless anyway) into the trash and started going through the pack of cigarettes. He must have only had about a half left when the damn agent finally graced him with her arrival. She looked shocked to find him sitting on her desk which he moved in front of the open window, with a cigarette in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.

Yeah, he sneered when their eyes locked, probably he should have knocked first. He was just so fucking angry, for anger was the furthest thing from vulnerability, of course.

"They found Sara," he told her.

Her eyes widened (how the fuck was it possible for them to become even bigger, Lincoln wondered) and she snapped the paper from his hands.

It was a notification that there had just been a profile entered into the database of unidentified bodies and dishearteningly many of its parameters matched Sara. Gender, race, estimated age, approximations of weight, height. And then there was the location. Morenci, Arizona. Just across the border from Gila. It was her, it had to be her, his hand was shaking and the cigarette ash was falling all over the desk. Perhaps links to the past, he mused, were better than a full closure after all.

"It's not her," Agent Spencer said after probably less than five seconds of perusing the paper. To Lincoln, it felt like hours.

"What are you talking about?" he frowned. "It's a perfect match. Look at the fucking location."

"It's not her," she repeated. "Have you even read the report?"

"Of course I fucking read it!" he screamed and jumped off the desk. He wanted to thrash around and her fucking hair smelled like fucking strawberries. How dared she smell like spring when they were about to irrevocably shatter his little brother's shell of a heart? She should smell of death. He had no idea how she was to achieve that, but she should.

"A complete skeleton found, only the mandible and hands missing. You only take those away if you don't want identification, Lincoln," she spoke to him like he was five years old and seeing fractions for the first time, and he might as well be because he still had no clue how this could not be Sara. "And yet here we are, talking about this. Gender, height everything points to Sara. Come on, Lincoln. The Company wouldn't be this lazy, you know that."

"Then what would they do, huh?"

She sighed, and the good mood of the morning evaporated, a cornerstone of her dealings with Lincoln Burrows. She wondered if they had given her the case because they wanted her to quit, rather than just fire her.

"Lincoln, if I'm honest, I think there's less than 1% of ever finding her. I think they took her to taunt Michael, and eliminating a possibility of ever finding her just gives them an upper hand, forever, even after they are long gone."

Lincoln wanted to pick apart her statement and yell it back to her, just so that he could scream. He settled for another cigarette, hoping it would spoil the smell of the agent's stupid strawberry hair.

***

Morenci was a mining town at the edge of the Arizona desert. An oddly fitting place to find Sara, Lincoln thought, a town constructed with the aim to exploit, shamelessly uncover what was meant to stay buried, then celebrate by slaughtering some more.

Whatever the agent had assured him, Lincoln didn't discard the possibility of the body being Sara. It wasn't just that he hated that she was right about so many things. Sure, the Company may jubilate, knowing their enemy would never find what he searched for the most, but in Lincoln's mind, that required effort and care. The refusal to acknowledge that one is a human being, someone's child, someone's favorite person in the world, could inflict just as much suffering. Ditching the body in the first half-inhabited town you pass through, throwing just enough soil over it to hide it from casual glances, leaving what was left of a life so generous, so pure, to the consumption of bugs like it was a disposable item sold at every gas station, yeah, Lincoln thought it fit the Company's modus operandi swimmingly.

Agent Spencer had submitted Sara's DNA profile to Morenci's medical examiner, and today the results were coming in. Michael insisted they fly to Arizona and be told the outcome in person. Lincoln figured that if the woman was indeed Sara, he didn't want to be away from her for an additional moment.

The car ride from the nearest airport was disturbingly silent. For some reason, the desert wasn't as hot and dry as Lincoln had remembered from his early days on the run. Inevitably, of course, the arid land and lone cactuses standing in for road signs along the battered asphalt reminded him of the day Sara's disappearance remitted his flight to freedom.

He bowed down his head in embarrassment, remembering how self-absorbed he had been that day. His brother was barely keeping it together, and he stood idly by, cursing him for recklessly endangering them – for a chick, of all things. Would they still be here today, heading to Morenci, if he had quit thinking about his own ass that day? If he had done something more, anything but belittling a relationship that had become as important to his brother as their own, would they have found her in time?

He would never know. And it would forever abash him.

They spent hours in the rented car, its tires swallowing the miles to Morenci with a speed Lincoln didn't know whether to think of as too slow or too fast. No one talked and the radio wasn't on, even though Agent Spencer definitely looked like someone who knew the choruses of all Top 40 hits. She kept her eyes on the road, empty but for an occasional truck carrying copper. His brother, too, was staring at the road, but unlike hers, his eyes didn't welcome the passing vehicles. Lincoln doubted he even noticed them, his brother who never missed a thing. The only break in their routine came about an hour into their drive when Lincoln put his hand on Michael's shoulder, just to show him he was there for him. It was the only fucking thing he could think of, because words, nah, he sucked at words. But Michael didn't flinch, nor indicated he appreciated the gesture. Lincoln had never felt so desperate in his life, and he was a man who escaped a death in an electric chair by mere seconds.

Now they were seated in the office of the medical examiner. The AC was on, yet Lincoln still alternated between feeling cold and hot. It was an impossible situation, he realized. He couldn't decide whether it was a match that he hoped for. Sure, it would be over and his brother could finally start mourning. However, without having something to wake up for, no matter how deranged, Lincoln feared to ponder on alleyways grief would take his brother to.

It should make him pray for a negative result, but what good would that do to his brother? A continued obsession, more limbo no one had any idea how to break. A hope that he would someday have something even remotely resembling a normal life pared further down.

Agent Spencer had once told him that it would never end. He was starting to believe that there really was no Panama at the end of his road.

The room had no air, Lincoln finally decided and walked out, mumbling the same unintelligible excuse as the three previous times he could no longer sit still. Michael didn't seem to notice his brother leaving. With an expression so guarded Abigail would wholeheartedly admire if it wasn't so heartbreaking, he fumbled with the cuff of his shirt.

"You know, this is killing him just as much as it is killing you," she remarked casually, as if discussing a grocery list, when the door closed behind Lincoln. The only reaction Michael gave her was the movements of his fingers slightly slowing down, and she took it as an incentive to continue. "And you wanna know what I think?"

"Why do I have a feeling you will tell me regardless?" Michael said.

"I think that you know that none of this is your brother's fault. And you can't bear the fact that it isn't yours, either. That you did nothing wrong. So you've placed the blame on Lincoln; not because you'd consider him guilty or want him to think he was at fault. You feel like you deserve to hate yourself, so now you hate yourself for the unreasonable treatment you are giving Lincoln. Because of all the things one can hate themselves for, the hatred for their own family is the most profound one."

"Like you've told you once already, Agent Spencer, I think you have chosen the wrong career path," Michael said, with his eyes still on the cuff. He didn't lift them until the door swung open again, and Lincoln walked it, closely followed by the medical examiner, a stout middle-aged man with a smile whose width that made one wonder what had driven him toward such a morbid profession.

Samples were not a match, he told them.

Michael Scofield was a brilliant man. It occurred to Lincoln that he, too, must have realized the moment he had read the fax that this would be the most likely outcome. Yet his sigh upon hearing it confirmed was so ambivalent, imbued with relief and anguish at the same time, that Lincoln knew something stronger than cigarettes would be needed if he wanted to sleep that night.

***

Lincoln met his brother for breakfast the following morning. They were seated in the back of the diner, right by the window facing their hotel, and watching people exiting the hotel was a distraction Lincoln direly needed. Was it just in Arizona, or did people talk this loudly in all diners he had ever been to? His head felt too heavy to think. He could swear that if he closed his eyes, he could identify what every person in the diner had on their plate simply by the smell of it. And then there was the fucking music. Never before had he realized just how annoying the Latino music was, even with Sucre playing it at all of their get-togethers.

He watched Michael folding the paper napkin into a crane again, step by step, just like he had taught him when they were kids. He had asked Abigail (Agent Spencer, he corrected himself) what she thought about it the night before, when the bar was still open and there wasn't yet a need to embark on an odyssey to prolong the night. She thought it gave Michael a feeling of control and, as a result, peace, "something that has been taken away from him along with Sara." Lincoln didn't pretend to know or give any shit about psychology, but he had found the agent's explanation to be pretty neat, and now, when at least half of the alcohol must have already been out of his system, her words still made sense.

Michael didn't say anything when Lincoln forewent his usual morning order – eggs with bacon and toast, together with an insane amount of ketchup – and opted only for a cup of coffee. He remained silent when Lincoln's fingers tentatively reached for the cup, only to put it down again and again, even when the steam was no longer billowing. But Lincoln knew better. His little brother never missed anything, and when he added the dark circles under his eyes to the equation, the throbbing in his head increased because, fuck, it was so obvious.

But it didn't matter, his compartmentalization skill kicked in again. Her nails still drove him crazy (how was it possible that her nail polish was never chipped? He knew the amount of time he spent pondering that was borderline obsessive, but he just couldn't stop) and while she finally relented and started calling him by his first name around 11 o'clock, it didn't make her voice any less annoying. Nothing changed. What had happened was a completely, well, perhaps not a normal occurrence, but it was not the end of the world, either. His stomach felt like turning over because of the hangover and hangover alone. It was high time he admitted to himself that his roaring twenties were behind him, and after spending years either locked up or under supervision while working on the Scylla Project, he just couldn't drink as much as he used to anymore.

Everything was fine. Just peachy, he kept repeating to himself, even though the few glances his little brother cast at him made him wish for a sandy beach, just so that he could bury his head in the sand.

"So where's Agent Spencer?" Michael ineluctably asked where there were no steps left and the crane was done.

"Um, I don't know," he said, trying to minimalize his breathing because, fuck, whatever Michael ordered with his eggs, it fucking reeked. "I haven't seen her since, um…"

"Yesterday evening?" Michael innocuously proposed, and the blurry vision Lincoln was still experiencing made it simple for him to ignore the smirk on his little brother's face.

Lincoln nodded, grateful that it didn't require opening his mouth to form words.

"Linc, I need to thank you," Michael then intoned after a heavy sigh, pushing the plate with half-eaten eggs to his left and away from where Lincoln was sitting. Of course Michael had enough experience with his brother's hangovers and other questionable choices of the previous night to diagnose his behavior correctly.

Fuck.

"About what?" Lincoln shrugged, wondering if he would think of a possible reason sober. Because frankly, he couldn't recall the last time he had been a big brother Michael deserved to have.

"For coming here with me. And for telling Agent Spencer about the video."

"Nah, man, that's nothing. You don't need to thank me."

"But I do," Michael insisted, his look most certainly conveying more than Lincoln was in the state to decipher. He looked down, the sheer intensity in his little brother's eyes exacerbating the throbbing in his head.

"Hey, you botched the last step," he said, nodding towards the crane conspicuously placed between them.

"No, I didn't," Michael said with enough conviction for Lincoln to choose to believe him.

"The beak is too straight, man. I thought I taught you better than this. This is crap."

"Don't be ridiculous, Linc. I know how to make a crane," Michael insisted.

"Bullshit," Lincoln said and reached for a paper napkin. He might be horrible with words, but paper cranes transcended them; they always had. Michael did the same with playfulness in his nimble fingers which Lincoln didn't realize he had missed until it returned, after more than four years. "Now watch and learn. I'm only gonna show you once."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> One more chapter and then we'll see what Sara is up to.  
> Please review :)

Michael met Jessica at a fundraiser organized by the school in the Bronx at which he was volunteering a couple of times per week.

It had been five months since the last Scylla card was analyzed in detail and subsequently destroyed to prevent its content from ever running amok again. The two brothers were running out of the events to describe (Lincoln was without words altogether, taking up his little brother's habit of wearing a wristwatch and fumbling with it rather than making eye contact with the agent in charge of their case. She didn't seem to mind the inattention, as she barely registered his presence anyway), and Agent Spencer struggled to justify their daily presence to her superiors. They eventually settled for biweekly meetings; other days she was assigned to other cases. She was apologetic when she told him, but Michael just shook his head. While looking for the Scylla cards, all he had wanted was to focus on what truly mattered to him. Now that he had been immersed in it for a few months, he realized he had no other plan and had passed the end of the road a while ago.

He got an apartment in New York City. The distance he put between himself and the room with maps, printouts, photographs, and pain was large enough to let him breathe, yet he was close enough should anything happen. After five months, he finally acknowledged that he was starting to lose hope.

Michael barely made it to the fundraiser in time. That morning he had been at Langley, cooped up in his room where gigantic maps served as his windows. It had been weeks since he last drawn a line, circled a place, calculated the distance. There were no files still waiting to be deciphered, no names to familiarize himself with, and no staring at phone records or credit card statements could yield a new lead. These days he just stood, paralyzed by the immensity of the collage in front of him. The downfall of the Company still dominated the headlines and wherever he looked, he saw praise. He had taken on the world and won. He was the smartest man in America, perhaps the world. He was invincible, a superhero without a cape.

But he could not find Sara. The one thing he wanted for five years, the lone rope that kept him above water, and he was failing her, once more.

That morning, he snapped. He reached for the center of the map, grabbed it and pulled it off the wall. He kept tearing everything until the emptiness of the wall matched his feelings. His merciless hands tore the months' worth of work apart, demolishing it all like it was just one of the bricks of the future he had held in hands that one night.

When there was nothing left, he collapsed to the floor and buried his face in his hands as the pieces of the collage still rained down around him. His breaths were still broken heaves when Abigail found him. She glanced at the pieces of paper that now served as the carpet and sat down next to him without remarking the blank walls.

"She wouldn't want you to be killing yourself like this, Michael," she eventually said. By then, she had known him long enough to know when not to expect an answer. She started picking up scraps of the map. Northern Arizona, most of Utah, a bunch of little dots whose annotations she didn't recognize. When she held them like that, she could almost be hopeful. "There is no right or wrong way to deal with the loss of someone you love. But guilt and hate will get you nowhere, Michael. Letting go of them, and perhaps letting yourself love someone else, does not mean that you have forgotten her. That her death no longer affects you. Or that you no longer love her or maybe have never loved her at all. Love is a very peculiar, yet simple thing. It is never more or less. It is just there. It's what makes it so precious, its inclusiveness."

He still gave no sign that he was aware of her presence, let alone that he heard her words. She bumped her shoulder into his, playful in her desperation.

"Come on. I'll help you make a new one," she said, and this time he reacted. While still avoiding her eyes, he mimicked her earlier gesture. The piece of the map he had chosen was the one with the red circle around Gila. He followed the red curve with his fingers so carefully as if it was the last time. His eyebrows were knitted, the only sign of the struggle raging in him.

"Don't bother," he said.

His hope in irreparable shreds, he had more time on his hands than his mind could handle. A school in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the Bronx greeted his offer to tutor kids with open arms. He was there three times per week after the regular classes ended. Jessica taught third grade. She was usually already on her way home when he arrived at school. Perhaps she had one day been running late and saw him, but he hadn't seen her until the fundraiser.

Her knee-length cocktail dress in the color of champagne didn't catch his eye any more than the dull black most attendees had opted for. Her face, the curve of her lips delicately emphasized with a light shade of pink and her eyes carrying just the right touch of mascara, melded in the ocean of others. Most men would appreciate the proximity of her, but not him. He was broken that way. Then she struck up a conversation with him for the third time and conveniently, the fundraiser ended and they exchanged numbers.

***

He forgot about the exchange and Jessica altogether until she called him up a week later and invited him to lunch. He said yes. He needed to celebrate anyway, he told himself, for he had just gotten a job in the leading New York engineering firm. With a reputation like his, his desk was brimming with potential clients before his first day was over. He spent the next two days just looking at the growing pile, wanting to tear that to shreds as well.

The following week he returned the invitation, just because it was the polite thing to do.

He took her to a restaurant three blocks from his firm. Whether it was the food or the way the early afternoon sun reflected off the wine glasses, something made her laugh a bit too loudly for comfort, and her knee brushed against his one time too many. They talked about charity work, a passion they shared, such a gorgeously impersonal topic for him.

Desserts were brought, and the end was nearing. He didn't plan on seeing Jessica again unless they bumped into each other incidentally in school corridors. The future was a vague concept to him these days, yet it was clear to him that it did not have a place for someone like Jessica. Regardless of the devastation he had caused, he remained presumptuous, he later mused; he still thought he had a right to expect things to go the way he ordered them to.

He was reminded of his haplessness when his brother walked by.

Lincoln had moved to New York as well. There were just enough blocks between them to give them an excuse to hang out every other day. Lincoln was working with C-Note now, in an import business the latter had set up since his clemency. LJ, still contemplating what to do with his life, lived with him.

Michael wondered who was surprised most by the encounter, Lincoln, LJ, or himself. He introduced Jessica as a teacher in his school, but LJ's face remained aghast. Lincoln, on the hand, sported a buoyant grin that perturbed Michael. He could swear that when the two walked away after a couple of agonizing minutes that dragged like hours, his brother's walk was that of a man half his age.

Now that Jessica had met all the family he still had left, he couldn't think of a reason not to sit next to her at the baseball game held at their school that weekend. Some of the kids he tutored were on the team that challenged a school from the adjacent neighborhood. Jessica had probably taught some of them when they were younger.

He hadn't invited her, and they had made no plans to meet. He saw her sitting on the bleachers, wearing a rosy summer dress despite menacing clouds gathering in the sky. She waved at him and he had no one to use as an excuse for not watching the game with her.

As the kids from their school raised their victorious hands and their mothers Facebooked it to all their friends, Jessica leaned closer and kissed him on the lips. Perhaps he should have seen it coming, he thought as he tasted the cola on her lips. Maybe he did.

He kissed her back, wrapping his hands around her waist under the autumnal afternoon sun. He was polite like that.

***

The sex was good. He felt her smile against the ink carapace of his heart. His fingers played with her hair that was of too light a shade to captivate him. His fingertips traced the pattern of the moles on her upper arm, a pattern they had no recollection of and no desire to memorize.

Was he really that good of an actor, he wondered. Sometimes he had to remind himself that she was more than a casual acquaintance, given the time they were spending together. He should feel abashed, but the nimiety of guilt had been marring him for almost five years now and he was tired. He couldn't feel anything but emptiness anymore. There was no attempt to hide it, but nothing about her demeanor suggested she took any notice.

How could Jessica not see that she was not a velleity? Was it him who was supposed to crack the shutters that kept her in the dark?

Maybe this was his nadir. Not the moment he found the shopping bag, and their perfect plans were scattered around it. Not the agony he felt watching the blood spill across the skin too graceful to describe. Not the shame of pushing his brother without an explanation. This. A woman, naked in his arms, building castles in her mind, unaware of how weak the bricks she was using were, how they were nothing but mere sand about to be retaken by the ocean as soon as the tide came. And he would let it transpire without an intervening word.

It had started with the blueprint in his office. He had brought work home without remembering they had plans, but she didn't seem to mind his indiscretion. She watched, perched on his desk, as he put the blueprint he was perfecting on the wall. He had been commissioned to design a new building for the leading insurance company in Boston. It was the biggest project his firm had undertaken in two years, and he volunteered. Unlike anyone else, he didn't feel the pressure of expectations.

He took two steps back to study the plan, his fist under his chin.

"Explain it to me," Jessica asked him, reminding him of her presence. He didn't take it as anything but a completely innocuous request, of course. He stepped closer to the wall again and ran his fingers on the paper as he showed her the layout of each floor, explained why that was the perfect location for the staircase, and he caught himself using too many technical terms in a row, but did nothing about it. As he talked, she neared him without a word and without him noticing. Somehow her actions always escaped his attention if he didn't force himself to focus on her.

He still had half of the sentence to finish when she traced his earlobe with her tongue. He didn't find it exactly repulsive but did welcome it with nonchalance. His breathing remained steady as her mouth made its way to his. He moved a stray strand of hair off her face, shunning the color from his thoughts. She moaned as his lips caressed the skin of her neck, and then the hands danced about their bodies, the fingertips left bonfires in their wake, and his heart shut down.

"We should have nicknames," Jessica looked up at him afterward, her chin resting in his chest. The frenzy of her breathing had subsided and only a slight indiscreet blush on her cheeks gave away what they had just done.

"Sorry?"

"You know. Couply nicknames. You always call me Jessica. It sounds, I don't know, formal," she said, and her gaze held his eyes, inviting him to answer. But he was tired, tired of thinking, exhausted by the disjunction between what he wanted and what he said. The weight of her body pressed against his didn't help him one bit.

He cupped her face to buy himself time. He returned the gaze – god knows what she saw in his eyes that stopped her from jumping out of bed and running out with the speed of sound.

It had always been ridiculously easy for him to remember faces. His memorization of her freckles – disproportionately many of them dotted the right side of her face – did not emerge out of his desire for her. To him, she was just Jessica. Their first conversation did not ring out in his mind before he fell asleep, and losing the memory of her taste on his lips was not his biggest fear.

He knew he shouldn't be doing this.

But he was damned anyway.

She still waited for his answer.

"We're talking too much," he said. He shut off his mind for the first time in five years and rolled them over.

***

Jessica moved in on a Tuesday. Orange pillows now embellished his grey sofa. She had bought new curtains for windows, a brightness he would never choose in his gloom.

About a month ago, she had talked about her rent. It was thrown into their conversation so randomly he didn't think twice about it, and his mind was elsewhere most of the time she talked anyway. He tried, he really did. He was determined to try, to keep trying, even if it ended him for good. He tried for Lincoln, who suffered through cold spells with tickets to Panama in a drawer. He tried for LJ, so that he wouldn't worry about his uncle anymore. And there was Jessica; he needed to try for her, because none of this was her fault. Sometimes he tried to convince himself he did try for Sara, too, for he detested an idea of his suffering being her legacy.

Now, seemingly overnight, the boxes were emptied of Jessica's things and stacked in the hallway. She had packed up her life without his assistance. He hadn't known when she would get everything over to his place until he returned from work, his lateness barely still passing for unsuspicious, and framed photographs of her life peaks were chasing some of the shadows away from the plain walls amongst which he had existed. He was merely an observer of her unfolding plans.

He used to have plans of his own. A whole life's worth of them. They were his masterpiece. He was lauded for having orchestrated a daring prison break and bringing down the Company, but this fell miserably short of the plans that were dearest to him. And yet their glory couldn't bring them to fruition. Why would he bother planning anything ever again? Nothing could live up to what he once almost had. So he let Jessica do the thinking, the planning, the decision-making. In a way, she could really be any other woman. Perhaps, he mused as he watched her rearranged the damn pillows for the millionth time as if her life depended on it, if he lived in her light for long enough, he would actually believe in it himself one day.

Three days later, Abigail came for a visit with her purple folder in her hands. It had been months since he was last in Langley, yet it felt like he could still not escape his little nook there.

From the smile Jessica sported when she offered to bring them coffee, or whatever the agent would like, no one could guess that the day before she had asked him when he was planning on selling his apartment in Chicago. They were having dinner in the living room, the Chinese takeout he had picked up on his way home, and her feet were on his lap. He had never told her about the rent he was still paying for a place in Chicago. No one knew, except the agent in charge of his case. He would never tell Linc, not now when the latter started smiling more and they were finally figuring out their relationship. Michael knew that Lincoln only wanted the best for him. He always did, ever since they were kids, and Michael loved his brother for that. But never until now were their ideas of what was best for Michael so different that they didn't dare to express them in words.

"I wasn't snooping or anything, I swear," Jessica hurried, moving her legs so that there was no contact left between them. It was ridiculous. They were living together, sleeping together, knew each other's quirks and triggers, yet tiptoed around trivial matters. He should probably find it more worrisome than he did. "Your bank statements were on the table, and it just caught my eye."

"No, no, it's fine," he said, purposely avoiding the answer he wasn't sure he would ever have.

"Well, if you change your mind, just let me know," Jessica now said, and her radiant smile made Abigail aware of an entirely new kind of sadness of the case she was in charge of.

"So she's moved in, huh?" she remarked after Jessica duly closed the door behind her, leaving Michael and the agent alone in his office. It was such a familiar setting for them, an enclosed space with covered walls; only, now there was no obsessive map that led nowhere, only detailed blueprints. She knew that Michael's latest project would soon enter the phase of actual construction. "How do you feel about that?"

"Well she's moved in, hasn't she?" he responded with a tone that reminded her why, despite hating to have a practically closed case left so blatantly open, she enjoyed not having to deal with the two belligerent brothers on daily basis. Some mornings she couldn't decide which of the duo was worse, Lincoln with his murderous energy or Michael with that unreadable intensity.

"I have something good to tell you," Abigail said. "The Morenci Jane Doe? You were right about everything. They identified her. Her name is Linda Alexander. Never reported missing. The DNA confirmed it yesterday."

"Good. Did you locate her family?"

"There's no one left," she shook her head. "No idea who the father was. Single mother, died of cancer a few years back. Been in jail a few times for prostitution. A younger brother, died in an accident eight years ago, just before the last confirmed sighting of Linda. People from her hometown that I talked to all thought she just took off. I had to go through yearbooks to find her photograph, and that's outdated for over a decade. A sample for comparison was from a great aunt who didn't even know Linda existed."

She opened the folder and handed her a yearbook photograph. It was her actual photograph, not the facial reconstruction he had hired an expert to do and had given to Agent Spencer the last time he was in Langley. Now it seemed absurd that there was a moment, however ephemeral, when they thought the woman may be Sara. They may have matched on paper, but they looked nothing like each other.

"You did amazing work, Michael. She had a hard life. What you did for her, fight to get her name back, it was probably the only time she was ever shown grace."

"I'm glad," he said, and it had been a while since he last meant his words.

***

Sucre had just welcomed his third child, his third baby girl. He had been telling anyone during the pregnancy how he prayed for a boy this time, but Michael knew Sucre couldn't be happier to have another girl.

To celebrate the newest addition to their family, he and Maricruz organized a large party at their new house in New Jersey. As excited as Michael was to meet his best friend's new baby, Sucre looked forward to meeting Jessica just as much.

When Michael had first told him that he was bringing her, Sucre needed a few seconds to find words.

"Yes, do bring her, Papi. Jessica, right? Of course, bring her. I can't wait to meet her. I, um. So it is, you know, serious?"

"She moved in a couple of months ago," he said, and another long pause ensued before Michael changed the subject. If Sucre did feel anything but happiness for his best friend and approval of Jessica, he was careful not to let it show. The following Saturday, he ran out of his house, barefoot despite the rain, his arms wide open to greet Michael before the latter could even stop the car. He held him as if they were still in the world where they might have unbeknownst to them run out of tomorrows.

Jessica had been nervous about the party. What if they don't like me, she kept repeating, then frowned when he laughed at her. She scoured Manhattan for the perfect baby gift, then shopped some more for presents for the older girls. She needn't have worried, of course. She held out her hand tentatively to greet Sucre, but he pulled her into an embrace immediately. At that moment, with rain falling down on him and forcing him to squint, Michael finally saw Jessica for whom she was.

She was a hit with the girls. They wanted to brush her hair and wanted her to do their nails. She was a natural with kids, Michael thought as he watched her glistening eyes. And they were living together.

"You thinking of having one of your own?" Sucre asked him.

"We haven't talked about it yet," Michael said. But he hadn't been thinking of finding someone to play Jessica's role either. They had never outright discussed their togetherness, and yet now she occupied every corner of his apartment while still kept away from his soul. With his mind in abeyance, his life still raced as if he was on the run. He watched the places around him change, people were coming and going, only fragments of their conversations reaching him. Along with his control, he had let go of his decisiveness. If he didn't reclaim himself soon, he may soon end up with something he didn't want and could never get rid of.

Of all things he had known as a child, being unwanted was the hardest lesson to take in stride. Even now, as a man so many considered the pinnacle of success, he felt at times like he only belonged to the darkness where he could cause no trivial problems. What would he be like, with a father around to guide him, without blood on his eyelids too many sleepless nights? The idea of this man he might have become with a family that wanted him was as inconceivable as it was heartbreaking.

How could he be a father he demanded of himself to be if he knew there was a chance, and not a minute one, that he would make his kid feel the same way? They wouldn't even be his backup plan. They would be a pause while his world stopped spinning for a moment, only to continue as if there was never an interruption.

Could he teach his children the good things if he longed to be a wanted man again with the Company at his heels and his sweetheart by his side; could they look up to him as an example of a good person if every night when he lay down next to their mother, he wished she was the woman whose hand he would never let go of? Because he would marry Jessica if there were kids. Not doing so was out of the question for him. Whatever it was that he craved and how much his want was breaking him, he wouldn't let it get in the way of doing the right thing.

There had been a time when he could picture a family of his own. A little girl with her mother's eyes. A little boy who adored his mother. He had wanted lavish family vacations with matching outfits and sleepless nights with runny noses; the sound of little feet running on the parquet floors to be what woke him in the morning; a game of hide and seek between drapes as the sun was setting.

But things don't work that way.

There are some things that are granted to you, and then there are others, the ones so real in your heart that somehow just can't make it in the real world. He couldn't make his own kids compete without a chance of winning.

"Well, Papi," Sucre's smile didn't waver. He had been the first to realize that Sara was more to him than just a prison doctor. Perhaps that was why he sounded as if he didn't believe his own words. "I'm happy for you. I really am."

On their drive back to New York, Jessica's recount of the day was louder than the radio. She couldn't stop talking about the little girls' reaction when they opened their gifts and how they had Sucre wrapped around their little fingers. Michael silently acquiesced to her words, aware of what was underneath them.

She was still gushing when they were doing the dishes, their usual routine before heading to bed.

"Anyway, um, my cousin's birthday is coming up. And as it is just like two weeks before they start building the project you're designing, I was thinking maybe we could fly down to Georgia for a little getaway? It's been awhile since we went anywhere, just the two of us."

"I don't think we should be doing that, Jessica. Or anything else, really," he said.

"What?" she said, not giving his words the consideration she should. The warmth of her smile he didn't deserve didn't fade as she put a cup back in the cupboard.

He turned off the water and leaned on the sink with his arms. He couldn't see her, yet could swear the air between them grew colder. He heard her tentatively close the cupboard, and then there was complete silence until she finally called his name.

"Jessica," he sighed and turned to face her. "I owe you an apology. I used to think I could do this. Now I realize I have no excuse to let it go on. I can't keep making you think I am as in this as you are."

"Wait, are you breaking up with me?" her jaw dropped.

"Jessica, you deserve someone who will not be able to wait to marry you, who will want to be the father of your children. A man for whom you will be his first, and only, choice."

"We live together," she was shaking her head as he stood there, completely still, his arms falling down the sides of his body. He didn't have his suit on, his usual body armor, so he had to make do with his posture. Her shoulders drooped in disbelief. "We share a bed. Fuck. How could I not see this coming?"

"Because it has been there since before we met."

He saw the confusion in her eyes dissipate. In the months they had shared, they never spoke of Sara. Michael now supposed it had never been brought up because Jessica didn't figure it mattered. She was, after all, waking up next to him every morning.

"Can't you say you're fucking your secretary or something?"

"I don't want this to go too far."

"Yeah, well, I think we are kind of passed that point."

"I am sorry," he offered, fully aware of how empty his words were.

Jessica ran her hand through her hair. She stared at him with an expression he didn't know how to interpret. That was his penance, he thought, for never properly looking at her until he watched her heart break.

"Yeah. I wish I could not believe that," she finally said.

***

Jessica moved out on a Tuesday. He helped her carry the last of her boxes to her car. As they stood by the trunk and embraced, he noticed the trees in front of his building had started to bloom. For some reason, it brought a smile to his face. He didn't recall ever before caring about the imminence of spring.

"Well, I hope you find your peace," Jessica said when they were facing each other again.

"Take care of yourself," were his last words to her before he watched her drive away and out of his life. Once he was back in his apartment, alone, he opened all the windows to let in the spring air. He glanced around the living room, now once again adorned in a dull, grey shade.

For the first time, it didn't make his heart constrict and his knees didn't buckle under the remorse.

It was still here, of course. It would never go away. The difference was, he was done fighting it. It wasn't that he was giving up. He wasn't moving on, either. He chose to embrace his loss as a part of himself. If this was all he would ever have, all he would ever be, he was okay with it. He wouldn't have chosen it had he been given a chance, but some things were just out of everyone's control.

He remembered the phone call he had made in a dilapidated shack, just days after the escape from Fox River.

It was real, Sara, he assured her.

Years later, when the days they had shared were painfully outnumbered by the days marred by the loss of her, it was still real. And that was enough for him, now.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. Feel free to review :)

It took Lincoln over a week to trust himself enough to meet up with his brother and be confidently sure he wouldn't flip out. Luckily for him, Michael had flown to Boston almost immediately after breaking up with Jessica to oversee the start of the construction of the building he had designed. Lincoln had seen those plans and they were so intricate that he fully believed his brother should stay there another week, just to make sure that the contractors knew what they were doing and that Lincoln's anger completely dissolved.

"Uncle Mike is coming home today," LJ had reminded him in the morning, as if he could forget. The date was burned in his brain with horror. Because as long as Michael was in Boston and they communicated with short texts of acknowledgements, he could reread those few words (he was never big on texting anyway) and be reasonably sure they were as neutral as he could make them. Once they'd be in the same room together, and he'd stare at those obdurate eyes of his brother's, well, losing it wasn't an impossible contingency.

"Are you gonna go see him?" LJ asked, and Lincoln wished his son wanted their upscale place to himself for the day to bring over a girl. He knew better, though. In his opinion, LJ was spending way too much time with people who thought the past should be dissected and mulled over and fucking never buried. He had never given the permission neither to his son nor to the agent (he refused to even acknowledge her surname these days), but they were meeting behind his back anyway. There could not possibly be any other reason why LJ, too, spoke about Sara as if he expected her to drop by at their party for the Fourth of July.

He really had gone to his brother's with the best of intentions, Lincoln later mused, sitting under the sun of Panama, so unbelievably hot it made him long for the bitter winter of New York. It was a struggle to find the sound of the ocean pleasing when there was a maelstrom of the language he didn't speak all about him and the fucking sand irritated his skin. Nothing, absolutely nothing about Panama was as he had imagined it to be. If this was comeuppance, though, he would bear it. Because a return to New York was out of the question. He was done with that shit.

He waited for Michael in front of his building, every second fighting an urge to smoke. But when his brother finally showed up, he did think for a handful of minutes that it would be fine. Even as he walked through his apartment to the living room and turned on the TV, he was fairly confident. Sure, the walls were no longer adorned with framed photographs of promises of what life could offer if you kept an open mind. And, yeah, the shelves were filled with books so symmetrically as if someone sacrificed an afternoon making sure they were somehow both alphabetized and sorted by the height, and there were no orange pillows on the couch anymore to fall back onto and to love for chasing a bit of the greyness away. Lincoln could even deal with the two coasters his brother laid on the brand new coffee table in front of the television. When he later recalled his last day in New York (which of course he never did, just as he had promised to himself when the elevator stifled his son's sobs), he always concluded that everything started off fine – as fine as the rapport between two brothers who were both fucking broken, each in their distinct yet identical way, could be.

The game was in its last quarter, and Lincoln's favorite team was winning, and the beer was refreshingly chilled, and he was feeling foolish for having worried so much, and then he descried it.

At first he thought his eyes had only caught a shadow at an odd angle. Then his favorite player scored, and he kept staring at it because it was so small and his brain refused to compute it.

Michael was aware of the stare directed at his hand; Lincoln could always tell when his little brother was intentionally looking away, following the players' actions as though it was the finals and he was the staunchest fan. He was never that into basketball anyway.

That was the trigger, he later decided. Michael's blatant pretending that it had always been there and that it was a fucking normal thing to have.

"What the fuck is that?" Lincoln reached for his brother's hand before he could stop himself. Apparently, Michael had been expecting such a reaction, as he pulled his hand back. Of course he would, Lincoln thought. He was a fucking genius. A fucking delusional maniac. They always said there was a fine line between brilliancy and lunacy.

"Just watch the game, Linc," Michael sighed, and his voice was so forcefully devoid of reaction to what had just transpired that it inevitably infuriated Lincoln more.

Lincoln had liked Jessica. She was pretty, chatty, smart, and kind. Of course he never thought that his brother felt some sort of grand love for the woman, but Lincoln had had his heart broken enough times to know that the great passions didn't mix well with reality. A relationship built on affection, respect, and companionship was something he came to wish both for himself and for his brother. Nothing too wild; something containable, something to be there, every day, in just the right amount to keep you grounded. Jessica was such a safe, perfect choice that Lincoln couldn't have made her up even if he had tried. She had that habit of always looking forward without much regard for what was no more, and, fuck, that was something Michael needed. Someone to get him out of his head, to get him moving forward.

And he had thrown it away and marked himself with even more binds of what would never be again. Lincoln couldn't stand looking at it; just knowing that it existed, so profound yet meager, sent his mind into a frenzied spiral. The ink Michael had spent on him was so much vaster than it that Lincoln could not suffocate the nagging reminder that he was the one causing his little brother all this pain.

"What the fuck were you thinking, Michael, breaking up with her?"

"I'm trying, Linc," Michael said, his eyes still on the television. It was less than two minutes left of the game and their favorites were winning, but neither of them cared.

"No, you're not. You're giving up."

"I love her, Linc. And that's why she's dead. If you're so smart, why don't you tell me how I'm supposed to just deal with that?"

That was when he snapped. The use of present tense had nothing to do with it. Later on, Lincoln wasn't even sure anymore whether Michael had used it.

"Wake up, man! It's been five years! She is never coming back. You can't save her and there's nothing noble in your insistence that you can! You gotta move on."

"Not like that."

The motherfucker had resolved to have his left hand hold a woman who was no longer alive to feel the touch, Lincoln realized. He wished he could just entertain the thought of never having a woman again, of never being so captivated by one he'd act out just so that she wouldn't see how hopeless he was around her. He wished he could be as loyal to Veronica, a woman who had given her life for his freedom; the thoughts of his first love had lately been replaced by images of another woman, one who had no place in his head and absolutely not in his heart, and their persistence and his inability to combat them maddened him.

But Lincoln would of course never admit any of this to himself.

"I'm not gonna watch you destroy yourself, Michael," he said and got up. He stormed past the coffee table and the half-empty beer bottles, and there were cheerleaders on screen and he wished he could watch them and appreciate them, and god, he wanted to talk to her and he hated the grip she had on him and how nonchalant she appeared to be about it whereas it was driving him crazy.

"Don't act like you are doing any better than me, Linc," Michael said. He should have kept walking, Lincoln scolded himself afterward. He could never decide whether turning on his heels made him a good brother or the shittiest one.

"What?"

"There's a woman you can't stop thinking about. And you pushed her away because she's not Veronica."

"Don't you dare talk about her like that," Lincoln hissed.

"Which one?"

"Veronica died trying to clear my…"

"So did Sara. How do you feel when someone throws it into your face that you should just move on, huh?"

Lincoln knew which one Michael had meant. As soon as he thought of her, everything he tried to erase from his mind gleefully returned. There they were again, her outrageous nails, the offensive smell of her hair, the overwhelming grace bestowed upon him, the man who destroyed everyone he ever dared to care about.

He should have called her after Morenci. Fuck, he should have taken her out before the bottles they had cracked impaired his decency. He was about to call her every day before and since then, but sitting with his phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other, just to prove she had no reign over him, nah, the almost didn't count.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Michael still pressed.

No, that was the real trigger. They were never this honest with each other. Maybe that was why they were so broken. He didn't want to find out, and fuck Michael for wanting to change it.

"Except that you don't love Sara. At least not in the way you are trying to get across." He should have stopped there. He knew it later when the blazing sun and mosquitoes buzzing around his head made everything so fucking simple in retrospect. But he had certainly known it then, too. "You martyr her because it's easiest to deal with it. Boy loses girl. Way simpler than grieving Westmoreland, Tweener…"

She had put it in such fancier terms. What had she said again, something about representation? What the fuck did he know about representation? All he knew was that speaking her words from memory was the only way he could be close to her these days.

As the game on the TV resumed, Michael stood up, and the next thing Lincoln was fully aware of was an aching feeling splashed across his lips. He tried to swing back, because he was Linc the Sink and his brother was planning nerd, but Michael pinned him against the wall with strength and ease that would have filled Lincoln with pride any other day, just not today. Today they intimidated him.

"You say that again and I swear to God," Michael hissed, and the hand around Lincoln's neck squeezed a bit tighter, just to prove he wasn't kidding. Lincoln didn't try to fight him off, then.

Michael let go of him as swiftly as he had taken hold. He took a couple of steps back, ran his hand over the bowed head, and Lincoln knew he was about to apologize. And there was no way in hell Lincoln was going to hear it. If there was anything he ever tried to teach his little brother, besides the origami crane, was that you never apologize for fighting when you are in the right.

He jumped forward, grabbed his brother by the shoulder and forced him to turn before launching a blow that smeared Michael's face with blood. Soon there was that familiar taste of blood in his mouth as well. It didn't stop him; he kept throwing punches, hitting Michael and hitting himself back into the evasive reason. Then one of them got caught on the weak leg and lost balance under the full weight of the other, and they fell back in unison, right onto the coffee table, breaking it. The game must have just ended, for there was clapping and cheering emitting from the television and the announcer was running out of superlatives for what he had just witnessed on court.

*****

LJ got home two hours later. He must have gone over to his uncle's, to watch another game with his dad and uncle or something, for he knew. He didn't glance around their living room, where two bags packed with Lincoln's belongings were placed on the couch, boarding passes next to them. His eyes went straight to his dad, and the exasperated look should have alarmed Lincoln, but he was in anything but a normal state of mind.

"You hit Uncle Mike?" LJ said.

"Just so you know, he hit me first," Lincoln said, and his sore lips didn't impede his speech. Whatever he was on, it gave strength as effectively as it was making him irrational. It wasn't that he wasn't fully aware, that he was just a mere observer as his mouth was roaming. He soberly believed he was doing the right thing, yet simultaneously knew what a fucking asshole he was being.

"Oh, real mature, dad. You are always giving people reasons to hit you!"

"Pack your bags, LJ, we're leaving," Lincoln said, grabbing the boarding passes and handing them to LJ, who jumped back as if they were red-hot steel.

"What? No way. I'm not leaving New York to go to …. Panama?! Really? You're crazy! Why can't you …"

"Fine, then stay here. Rent's paid for the year. Or go live with your uncle."

Lincoln let go of the boarding passes with his son's name on them, and they fell onto the carpeted floor, slowly as if they were feathers, as though they were waiting for someone to intercept their descent. But neither did. Now LJ was in disbelief, his mouth agape as he watched his father pick up the two bags and walk straight to the door.

"You can't go, dad," LJ tried to reason with him. "You and Uncle Mike are the only family I have left."

But Lincoln was no longer inside the same walls. He had opened the front door and was walking down the hall towards the elevators. For the first time he was living in a building with elevators and was able to afford it, it suddenly struck him. How ironic that this was also the first apartment he vacated voluntarily. Perhaps the glory of money was really nothing but froth.

LJ came running after him.

"What the fuck, dad? Uncle Mike loved Sara yesterday, or last week, just as much as he loves her today, and you didn't find it impossible to be around him. Is this because of the tattoo? Dad! Dad! Where are you going?"

Lincoln didn't respond, only sped up his steps as his son was screaming after him. What could he possibly say to him? That he was ashamed, not just because of the punches he had incited Michael to throw at him? That he couldn't be around his uncle because his resolve to mourn abashed him, for Lincoln had no idea how to start dealing with his own remorse? That he had been free for a bit over a year now, yet had fucked it all up again, without even having applied himself? All he knew was that he needed to get the fuck out, for his sake as much as for his family's.

LJ's desperate screams, now wetted with tears, got some of the doors open. Someone was asking if they should call the police. Lincoln's battered face had to be the only answer they needed, for they shut the door almost immediately.

An elderly lady stepped out of one of the apartments and embraced LJ, who leaned onto her as sobs were convulsing his body. Somehow he managed to yell after his father again, and this time Lincoln almost smartened up. But being a good father meant being a good brother, a good man, as well, and he was just tired. So with anguish piercing through him, he kept his stomps unbothered, like a child.

The elevator door opened, and Lincoln stepped in. He pressed the button for the ground floor and turned around to face his son one last time. The weight of the bags on his shoulders could trick him into believing he was the richest man in the world, carrying around the enviable valuables.

"He gave up everything for you," LJ wept, and Lincoln had never before felt so worthless.

"I didn't ask him to do what he did," he said the wrong thing again; this time, on purpose. LJ would be better off without him around anyway. What did he know about picking colleges or volunteering abroad? All he knew was how to bring people down and his only skill was demonstrating it again and again.

"They were gonna kill you, dad."

"Well, maybe he should have let them," Lincoln said just before the elevator door closed.

*****

On a Wednesday, the FBI announced the capture of a serial killer who murdered at least seven young women in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. They held a press conference, showed enlarged photographs of victims – Linda Alexander was one of them – and told the details of what had led to the arrest. They left out, of course, that the murderous pattern had been spotted by one specific individual. He, after all, had asked not to be mentioned when they offered him a job.

On Monday, Agent Abigail Spencer was informed that the Scofield/Burrows case was officially closed and that she was to be transferred to Oregon.

She waited until Friday evening to tell Michael.

"I'm so sorry, Michael," she said. "But there hasn't been anything for over five years. My bosses think resources would be better spent elsewhere, so, yeah."

They were seated in his living room, as there was no one to hide from anymore behind the shut door of the office. This was undoubtedly a place of a man who had spent too much time in enclosed spaces, she thought. There were drapes on the floor-to-ceiling windows, but they were undrawn and dark blue rather than still orange. It was nighttime already, and she could see the sanguine lights of New York. Maybe that was why he insisted on having such majestic windows and the unobstructed view. He wanted the light of freedom to reach every cranny of his apartment. Perhaps this was as okay as he would ever get.

Michael shook his head, only once. He had known that the case would eventually close. If anything, it surprised him that it hadn't happened sooner. There was nothing more anyone could do. They had survived. Now it was about the continuance of their existence. Not that long ago he had thought he would never get that much.

"Are they transferring you?"

"Yes. I got promoted believe it or not."

"I don't find it at all surprising. Congratulations."

The word left a sour taste in her mouth, just like the celebratory blueberry pie her father had baked for her when he heard the news. He was always giving her those damned blueberry pies. It must be the only thing he knew how to bake, she had eventually decided.

"I still feel like I failed you," she admitted.

Michael looked down on the stainless carpet with a decoy smile he didn't even hope would trick her.

"I've come to realize that remembering her must be enough for me," he said. For a man so reliant on being in control, she couldn't imagine the strength it had taken for him to let go.

There wasn't anything left to say, and her protracted stay would do neither any good. He walked her to the door and surprised her when he pulled her into an embrace. As he held her, he thanked her. He told her she had done more for him than anyone, and that it was probably more than she should have. There was nothing more anyone could do, he repeated, and she acquiesced with a swift nod, hoping he didn't see the vibrant lights reflected in her teary eyes. Frankly, she would be lying if she claimed that anything about their goodbye made her suspect there would ever be a reason for knocking on his door again.

*****

As Abigail was leaving the apartment in New York, a little boy was waking up in Lille, Northern France. They had forgotten to draw the curtains the night before, and now, blinded by the strip of the early morning sun, he had to squint. His wristwatch, the one he never took off (he made sure it was waterproof when he had left "Santa" a very detailed description of exactly what he wanted for Christmas) and the one mom swore was just like the one his dad liked to wear, said it was barely past six.

It would be hours before mom would wake up. She was always horrible in the mornings. He, on the other hand, couldn't wait to get up. There was so much to do every day, so many new things to discover that his mind was buzzing and rendered it impossible to sleep.

Mom said that was just one more thing he got from his dad. Sometimes she joked that the only thing he got from her was her love for kale, but even that he would very likely soon outgrow. As happy as he was to be like dad, he sometimes wished he was a little bit more like mom. Like when they were doing the puzzle together, and he could put together the frame before mom would pick out the edge pieces from the pile. Afterward she'd stare at him with a look that made him think not everything he had gotten from his dad was a good thing.

Mom's dark hair was draped over his tiny shoulder. Careful not to wake up, he wriggled out of her arms, then tiptoed to the window and drew the curtain. Now that his eyes – their hue matched his dad's perfectly – were used to the bright light, he could see that the cloudless sky carried a promised of a lovely day.

On his way to the kitchen he stopped at his bed (he did have his own bed, though most nights he just slept next to mom. The bedspread was carefully chosen – it was an American flag. For although they lived in France, mom always said they were Americans. Even though she kept telling people they were from Canada). He fished for his favorite book underneath the sheets, then went to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and poured himself some milk. He could make himself cereals, but it was Saturday and mom didn't have to hurry off to work and could make him pancakes later.

Mom had such a funny way of talking about his dad. She could talk for a long time, yet somehow always chose words that didn't really tell him much. But she had told him plenty of times that his dad loved Baja. And Thailand. And Panama, of course. He knew that it had been originally planned that he would grow up there, with both mom and dad. But then his dad died and mom went to France, to Aunt Geraldine.

Mom didn't know why dad had chosen Panama (or maybe she did, but just didn't want to tell him. He knew there were many things about his dad he was still too young to know. You are a very smart boy, mom would say, but you don't need to know everything right now. It was kind of like the whole deal with Santa – they both still pretended that the letters he addressed to Santa didn't end up in mom's hands. It made mom happy, and he was certain that dad would want him to make mom happy.). But it was clear to him that dad must have liked it for some reason. And since he had never met his dad and never would, getting to know as much about Panama was one way to feel close to him. So he perused books about Panama. His own library of travel guides had three such guides; there were only more books about America. But the USA was so much bigger than Panama (and he was American) that it seemed fair.

He did know what his dad looked like, of course. There were pictures. Not many of them, but its scarcity only made them that much more precious. It was because of the photographs that he knew he looked exactly like his dad. Except for the hair. Dad had shaved his head. Mom said he was too young to be sporting a haircut like that, so he wore beanies as often as he could, careful to tuck all his hair underneath it.

He never showed the photographs to anyone, not even to his big sister, even though he told her everything (she wasn't his REAL sister, of course. But she had lived across the hall his whole life and was the closest he would ever come to having a sibling). Mom said it was very important that no one knew who his dad was. He wasn't allowed to tell dad's name – or mom's real name – to anyone. And since dad had died so that he could have his mom, he knew it was imperative to do as mom said.

When it was a quarter past eight, he decided it was time to wake mom up. He climbed onto the couch that folded out and wrapped his little arms around mom's neck, careful not to touch the scar on her arm.

"Mom," he whispered in her ear. "Wake up."

He had to repeat his words three times before mom finally opened her eyes. She looked at him for a few seconds, then shut her eyes again.

"Morning, baby. Breakfast, right."

"Mom, let's have breakfast in the park."

"You want to go to the park, baby?"

He nodded. He liked open spaces.

"And maybe zoo in the afternoon?" he suggested. They had annual tickets. They were Aunt Geraldine's Christmas gift. She knew how much he liked the zoo. It was like a microcosm of the world, almost every continent represented by animal species.

"If that's what you want," mom smiled, slowly lifting herself up. She gave him a kiss on the head and ruffled his hair, then looked at him with that mischievous look he knew not all moms had. "Let's race to the kitchen!"

And he laughed as his little feet ran on the parquet floor after mom. He caught up with her just before they reached the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around her waist and they entered the kitchen in the same manner they did everything. Together.

END OF PART ONE


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandcastles/The Bars Between Us
> 
> Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading <3   
> Please review.

There was nothing about that July morning, six years after Gila, to indicate that the evening would end with smashed dishes on and around the counter.

This should be harder, Sara thought and the glass of orange juice was in her hand. She was a wanted criminal after all; she had aided and abetted the most notorious prison break in recent history, then got unlawfully out when the flames were still raging. She had left it all behind, along with the documents of her real identity, when she boarded that ship in Costa Rica. Well, all but her little miracle.

She wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been for their little boy. If it had been just her, alone in Costa Rica after having learned of Michael's death, she would have gone back to America and faced the consequences of leaving door open. Michael might have wanted her to be free, but what kind of life would that have been, weighted down by guilt and obscured by constant looking over her shoulder? Sara had been used to new beginnings, but that one daunted her. Without her father, without her medical license, without Michael, what excuse could there be for evading her warrant until someone recognized her or her heart tired out?

When she had been a little girl, changing the world was her goal. The six-year-old her would raise the tiny eyebrow at what her years of medical school had been reduced to now. But lofty ambitions didn't matter to her anymore. Now she was a mom, and it was a mystery to her why she had ever wanted to be anything more or else. Maybe it was presumptuous of her to claim freedom for herself in the name of their son. But her father had never been around and her mother had only been around bottles; giving her kid anything but all she could was out of the question. If she had gone to prison after Michael's death, their perfect baby boy would have ended up in the system, the same system that had inflicted so much suffering on Michael. She must have been the only person in the whole world who interpreted that as a noble excuse for avoiding the prison sentence that had awaited her.

After she learned about Michael's fate and realized their baby would only have her, she remembered a woman she had never expected to see again. Sara had met Geraldine when they were both doing volunteer work in India. They had never been exactly friends and never kept in touch, but Sara knew of Geraldine's work through mutual friends. Geraldine had opened up a center for women who were victims of domestic abuse and needed a place where they could be safe and figure out their next step. With a growing baby bump and scars all over her arms, Sara was just one of dozens of women who passed through Geraldine's doors every month. Thank god she had taken French in high school.

Sara stayed in Lille, and with Geraldine. Geraldine knew her real name, of course, but never asked why her documents now gave her name as Karen Williams. She never asked those questions, not when children were involved. But she knew that Sara used to be a doctor and that since she didn't have a license with her new name on it, she could no longer practice medicine. The center needed a doctor, and with her gentle, compassionate nature, Sara was a perfect fit. She patched up women brought in by the police in the middle of the night, consoled and counseled them, distracted their kids. Geraldine's work had been recognized by and thus financially supported by the government, so Sara's little infirmary was remarkably well stocked and was just like any other doctor's office she had worked at.

The center also had a block of apartments for women in distress to stay in. Sara and her little boy lived in one of them. As other women and kids were coming and going, some before the bruises could fade, Sara and her boy stayed. The only woman living there as long as Sara had was Moni, her next-door neighbor. Their apartments were the only two on the top floor, and that was probably just one more reason why over time they became a family.

Moni used to have a bright future ahead of her, like most of the women Sara was meeting these days. But one wrong decision when it came to love that could show her the world had left her with a young daughter and more broken bones than she could remember. Now, almost seven years later, Selena, her daughter, was already in high school and the bones no longer ached. She worked as an accountant for Geraldine and served as an inspiration for women who kept arriving, their cheeks still wetted with tears and their minds already on the way back.

So, yeah, it should be harder, being a single mother and a fugitive at the same time, Sara thought. Of course it wasn't perfect. They had a small bathroom that barely had enough hot water for both of them. Their little kitchen was only a wall, not a separate room, the stove was second-hand and the fridge was smaller than the one she had had in her dorm rooms. The living room was also their bedroom, and they had no washing machine and no microwave, something she would have considered mandatory when imagining motherhood seven years ago.

And there was no Michael.

But they had been never given a chance to do this together, so she didn't lament. She refused to lament from the moment she had boarded that ship. It could be so much worse.

They had a little balcony on which they sat and watched sunsets, then counted stars, other days marveled at storms until the wind changed and covered them with raindrops. The kitchen counter was large enough for the boy to sit on it and be with her when she was making dinner. There was a heart made of photographs on the wall of the living room; wherever they went – and they traveled as much as they could – they made sure to take pictures, many of them. Shelves were brimming with books and music, for the music was always playing. The silence reminded her of being underwater.

"What are you thinking about, mom?" her perfect boy asked. God, she still couldn't figure out what she had ever done to deserve him. He was so much like Michael that their alikeness made it impossible for her to avert her eyes just as much as it made them burn. Michael never knew. It was the most important piece of information she ever had, yet there had been no one left to tell, not her father, not the person who should hear it first. They hadn't had long together and their plans for the future never moved past breakfasts in Panama; family was an outrageous topic to discuss for two people who had bumped into each other just weeks prior. But Michael Scofield had always had a plan. Just thinking of what he had planned for them brought tears she detested to her eyes and she hated him for having to do the right thing. But he had given her their boy. He had given her the future just before he had to go, one last parting gift.

That was why she named him Bryce. It sounded so much like prize. She must have had some sort of hunch that the kid would be a spitting image of Michael that prompted her to give him his father's name only as the middle name. Because if someone was to find Bryce's face familiar, the name might be just what tied it all together.

"Finish your breakfast, baby, it's almost time to go," she smiled, but Bryce's eyes lingered on her face for that knowing second. He was growing up too fast. He had already learned things almost-six-year-olds should have no notion of, and she didn't help the matter. There was a difference between being sad and shattered, and while most days her heart was exuberant with gratitude and that little tinge of sadness, on bad days the flashes of what could have been drained her of her light.

The door of their apartment flung open, and Selena walked in, still in pajamas. She was Moni's fifteen-year-old daughter. Her curly hair was just as impossible to tame as her mother, and just like Moni, she had a tendency to sleep in, especially on school days.

"Aunt Karen, I have nothing to wear," she yawned, plumped herself on the chair next to Sara's, and pulled a face at Bryce's almost finished cereals. Despite Sara's attempts to make the girl understand that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, Selena was a firm believer that sleeping until the last minute was much more imperative. Sara couldn't blame her, really; she had thought the same until she became a mom.

"Your closet is fuller than mine, honey," Sara calmly responded like she did every morning.

"Can I borrow something anyway?" Selena asked, then looked over to Bryce. "You ready for school?"

"I've been ready for half an hour," he told her in a voice that didn't at all insinuate that there was only thirty minutes left until school time and she was still in her pajamas. He was polite like that.

"Just wait until you start doing fucking fractions," Selena said, and Bryce pointed out that she had said a bad word, and Sara chuckled into her glass of orange juice.

***

Sara still didn't foresee a pile of broken dishes when she got a call from Bryce's school.

A young woman had been brought in by the police the previous evening. Her face was distorted by the swelling of her lips and the blackness around her eyes. She had her daughter with her, a four-year-old with butterfly pins in her hair and dressed in a bright pink dress. Neither of them cried, even though the woman had blood clotted in her hair and could barely speak because of the swollen lip. Kids rarely cried, Sara had learned over time. Their movements were always stiff and their backs were straightened to brave themselves up; the eyes they kept wide open, carefully observing everything and everyone around them. There was tension in the corners of their mouths, but no tears ever came. Sara wondered if the shock of what they had witnessed numbed them in some way, or they just tried to be strong for their mother.

The woman was giving a statement to the police officer. Sara watched it from her office, with the girl on her lap. She was brushing and braiding her hair, just like she had Selena's when she was younger, and just like she would the little girl's she wasn't destined to have. Then the phone rang and Bryce's teacher informed her that Bryce had been "involved in a disturbance" and asked her to come to school. Before Sara could worry about what had happened this time, Selena reassuringly texted her that the school was filled with fucking idiots and teachers were the worst of them all (Selena had a bit of a foul mouth and nobody was sure whether she got it from Moni or her deadbeat father).

One rainfall, two bus rides and thirty minutes later, Sara found them both seated in front of the principal's office. She was told that a boy from Bryce's class, a kid who knew everything but what was academically required, had informed her son that Selena could not possibly be his sister because they didn't have the same mother or father. Bryce had told him to shut up and when the kid kept talking, he warned him that he was going to hit him. He started counting to three, but the kid didn't take the threat seriously, as Bryce was small for his age and the kid was the tallest and strongest boy in their class.

"Yes, I hit him. I won't apologize," was the only statement Bryce had given to their teacher and principal. The other kid didn't seem so big anymore when he whined to his mother, the teacher, and the principal that there was no countdown, that then Selena showed up and told him she would beat up his sister, and most importantly, that he never, ever hit anyone. All three knew that the latter was absolutely not true, and the principal informed Sara that that was the only reason Bryce and Selena weren't suspended for three days, like they would normally be. Selena was right, Sara smirked. Teachers really were fucking idiots.

"Did you really count to three?" she couldn't resist asking later when the two of them were in the park and sitting on a bench, the one by the pond that was their favorite. There was still wet in their hair from the rainfall that had caught them on their way from the market, where they had bought fresh strawberries from the vender that always gave them extra.

"Yes," he quietly said, then repositioned himself so that he was practically sitting in her lap. He clung to her and his eyes remained fixated on the family of ducks that was swimming in the pond. Mom, dad, and their three ducklings, chasing after each other in the sunlight that broke through the cloudy sky.

"Mom, what was my father like?" he then asked just as quietly, and Sara's heart skipped a beat and she wrapped her arms around his tiny body ever tighter, as if the emerging sunrays could steal him away from her, too.

In moments like this, Sara felt like a fraud. She had never hidden Michael from their son; she had talked about him when the little boy was still in her belly, and sometimes he kicked, as if he comprehended and wanted her to continue. When she first held him in her hands, she told him he had his dad's eyes and how happy his dad would be if he could be there with them. As soon as Bryce understood what it meant to have a mother, he also knew that he had a dad. She showed him the pictures Bruce had given her and told him all she knew about his dad. When she recounted the too few conversations she had with Michael, she went back to the first one, careful to use different words.

The first years had been easy. She had been in control of the narrative. Now Bryce was getting bigger and more perceptive, and soon he would realize that everything she was telling him he already knew. In all honesty, it wouldn't surprise her if he had it all figured out already. He was his father's son after all.

He had already started asking questions, trivial ones but specific enough to break Sara's heart. When Thibaut, his classmate, got a dog for his birthday, Bryce asked her if his dad preferred cats or dogs. She just shrugged. Then when Moni won coupons for a fancy restaurant downtown and they went and Selena got an allergic reaction to seafood, Bryce casually asked if his dad had any allergies. All she could tell him was that he wasn't a diabetic, but Bryce was too young to understand what that meant and it was ridiculous to speak of what his dad didn't have, so she was quiet yet again. And then just months ago, out of the blue, he asked her what his dad's favorite color was. Her lips turned white in the effort to keep in the sobs that threatened to consume her. How could she tell her son that Michael was the love of her life, the greatest man she had ever met, and yet she didn't know something as simple as his shoe size?

Sara was aware that her words and his childish loyalty to her would not be enough one day anymore. Bryce would type his father's name in a search box, and there he would be, the Michael Scofield as he was known to the world. His booking photos splashed across pages and pages of hits, the sensational headlines of his pernicious intellect, lurid accounts of his crimes. Sometimes she wondered what they had written about his death. She never looked, of course; there was no need to read about the nationwide jubilation that had taken place in her darkest hours. But she was sure that no intrepid reporter told the public that Michael died clearing his name and that his death was the loudest proof of his being a good man. The government, the Company or however they were called, doubtlessly ensured that no one in America had a nice word to say about Michael Scofield.

Her name and her face would be there, too. Just thinking about what was written about her broke her heart for their son. Not only was she a fugitive; the nature of her relationship with Michael must have been what intrigued people the most. She was probably accused of having had an affair with an inmate, and how could Bryce's existence help her negate that? What evidence did she have that Michael manipulating her wasn't just one more line on his egregious rap sheet?

She had been telling her truth to Bryce his entire life but would be the first to admit how feeble it was. Once upon a time she had thought she knew Michael Scofield – that morning, in the infirmary, when he kissed her. The vulnerability that permeated him, the plea he was scared to utter, it was real. It was real, Sara. Then her damned keys went missing, she was just a page in his plan, and his face was the breaking news and she was heading to jail. It was a pandemonium that wasn't quieted until he was all she could see, the only thing he could feel around her, in her.

How could it be real if in its core it had been a denial of what was all around them? They were fugitives, her father was dead, people were losing their lives because of them, and there was a plane waiting for them the next day.

When she had left that motel room in Gila, he was still a stranger to her; a stranger whose familiarity inebriated her, but in daylight, when his eyes substituted warmth for determination and his hands were too busy fighting to reassure her, he was just a stranger.

Could she blame their son if he felt betrayed to discover that his father was a criminal; if he was ashamed to realize that he himself was an offspring of two fugitives with bounties on their heads? No. She would turn herself in if it came to that. Raising Bryce was the only excuse she had for freedom anyway.

They weren't there yet, though. Bryce's little hand still got lost in hers and he still leaned on her shoulder to shield himself from the sun and she was his favorite person in the world and his father was a hero to him. They had today, and if Michael Scofield had thought her anything, today mattered more than a life of tomorrows.

Sara sighed and closed her eyelids, where he always waited for her.

"Michael Scofield was like a storm," she said, kissing the top of their son's head. "He was beautiful. And frightening; mysterious. And he would show up in your life out of the clear blue sky and then disappear, just as quickly."

Sara didn't even know what she wanted her words to mean, and she doubted that they made much sense to Bryce. But she had loved that man for over six years now, and it still bewildered her. Maybe that was what love truly was – something insane, irrational, devastating, explosive, healing. Six years later, and she was still wondering the same thing.

"Mom, would dad be disappointed in me today?" Bryce asked. It was what troubled him since they had left the school; the reason why his eyes continuously scanned his surroundings, careful to avoid her. "Because I hit Jules, I mean?"

It brought a smile to Sara's face. She hoped Bryce would remember this moment, so that one day, when he would learn the truth about his father, he would have proof of just how much alike they were. Because, yeah, she might not know how many sugars Michael had taken with his coffee, but she knew that family had come first for him. Always, without a doubt. Maybe that was all that truly mattered.

"Baby, your dad would be so proud of you for standing up for your sister."

"Because family is the most important thing?"

"Exactly," Sara nodded.

***

Bryce might have been almost six years old, but he was a very smart boy (or so everyone kept telling him), and yet there was nothing about the early evening that would make him suspect a storm was imminent.

After dinner, Aunt Moni and Selena came over to their place to watch TV with mom. He put on his sneakers that seemed to get a bit smaller every time he wore them, kissed mom goodbye, and headed one floor below to the apartment in which Karim lived. Karim was a boy a couple of years older than him who had recently moved in with his mom and three younger siblings (everyone seemed to have siblings, Bryce kept realizing. Everyone but him and Selena. That made her that much more important). He had spent the first years of his life in Tunisia, a country Bryce didn't know much about. Even though Karim claimed to barely remember anything, Bryce offered to help him learn French. Besides, his dad would want him to be nice to people – except the people who were mean to his family.

Karim's mom, a woman with hair even darker and longer than mom, gave them a plate of cookies called Ghraiba. She made a fresh batch every day, enough for all children in the building to get at least one. Some moms got cookies as well. Aunt Moni seemed to forget she was on a low-carb diet every time Karim's mom was nearby with a platter in her hand.

Karim's mom spent her evenings in front of a television, but didn't watch junk TV like mom did with Aunt Moni and Selena (Bryce could never understand why mom called it junk TV. It seemed to make her laugh, and she always said that it was healthy to laugh. Food from McDonald's which she referred to as junk food, on the other hand, was full of fat that was bad for you, as she never forgot to stress). Karim's mom watched the news. She claimed it was to improve her French, but Bryce knew she watched to see if her husband did another bad thing.

This evening, just like all previous evenings, Karim concentrated really hard on correctly pronouncing the words and phrases. Bryce was just as focused on his task, but his brain was wired a bit differently (that was what he was told by Mademoiselle Klein, a lady he talked to twice a month and whose office had a wall covered with fancy diplomas, something mom and dad also used to have in America). He could tutor Karim AND hear the reports on television. Kids in his class thought it was weird and told him so, but it was the only way he had ever known. Mom also hadn't been that happy when she first noticed. The following week he had had his first talk with Mademoiselle Klein. He liked Mademoiselle Klein just fine – her office had an aquarium, something he had only seen on television until then –, but he'd prefer to spend those two hours with mom. Mom, though, seemed to think the talking was important, so he went along with it. He figured this I-can-listen-two-more-than-one-thing-at-the-same-time thing was something he had gotten from dad, and that made it very, very special.

By now, Bryce recognized the names of politicians the reporters kept complaining about. They used many long words didn't understand. He listened a bit more attentively when the world reports were on in case there was something new to learn about Panama, but there was very, very rarely anything on Panama.

Most of his friends watched the sports report, enthralled by their favorite soccer players. But Bryce didn't know much about sports, probably because he had no uncle to take him to the matches. He was more interested in the culture/celebrity news, mainly because Selena (and by extension mom) watched so many series and listened to so much music that he, too, knew all the actors and singers. Like most days, there was an extensive report on a family of sisters with a long and complicated name (some of the words the reporter used would probably make mom cover his ears, but Karim's mom either didn't understand them or found them innocuous) and something about a blonde singer Selena didn't like. Then Karim accidentally tipped his glass and the juice spilled all over his notebook and one of his younger sisters came crying to their mother in a language Bryce didn't understand, and in all the commotion, he couldn't hear the television all that well anymore. Out of habit, just out of habit, not because he would feel any differently (Aunt Moni always claimed she could sense in her bones when the important things would take place, but Bryce couldn't recall her ever being right), he glanced toward the television.

And there he was.

His dad.

On television.

He knew it was dad. All he had ever seen of him were photographs, never a video, but there was no doubt it was dad. He knew his face as well as he did mom's.

Mom had told him that this might happen. That dad could be on TV and there would be people talking very bad things about him because the bad guys were very powerful and hated dad.

But now dad stood on a stage, with something that looked like an award in his hand, and he was talking to people who stared at him in awe. And Bryce tried really hard to listen to his father, for he had never heard his voice, but Karim's mom moved and obstructed his view, and Karim's other sister started wailing as well, and by the time he got off the chair and stood directly in front of television, the segment had already finished.

Bryce was a very smart boy. He could read better than anyone in his class and he could tell time accurately. So he must have noticed the small writing at the top of the screen that said his dad, his dad whom he had never met, had made this speech in New York just hours ago. Yet it didn't occur to Bryce that this was very, very odd, for his dad had died before he was born. All he could think of was that it was dad, his dad, and that he had to tell mom.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Review, maybe? :)

Sara heard Bryce's rushed steps before he pushed the door open with the force his childish hands allowed. She turned her head from the television but was not alarmed. That kid always chose running over walking, as if the day didn't have enough minutes and he loathed wasting a single one. Or, Sara thought solemnly sometimes, as though he knew how quickly someone could snatch those minutes away from him.

"Mom, dad's on TV," he shouted without looking at her. He glanced around and he had to have gotten at least some genetic traits from her, for she knew immediately what he was searching for. They spotted the remote control at the same time, but she was closer and grabbed it with all her might. She knew she had done it too fast for it to pass unnoticed by Selena and Moni.

Michael Scofield was like a storm, she recalled her own words. He would show up in your life, out of the clear blue sky.

She had a hunch that this time he wouldn't disappear as quickly.

She knew that this day was coming, of course. The Fox River Eight was too big of a story not to one day appear in a random newspaper article detailing the most daring prison escapes, or be a topic explored in a documentary on a crime channel.

But she had thought they still had time, and explanations of the truth were still only adumbrations in her mind.

"Baby, please don't watch that," she pleaded and knew she wasn't doing this right.

"No, mom, it's good!" Bryce exclaimed. He was a happy kid, well, as happy as their purlieus let him, but she had never seen him this euphoric. She prayed he hadn't heard a thing in his bliss. Then she could still explain it all away, somehow. But he must have, for the next thing he said was, "Dad got an award!"

That paralyzed her, and it was all Bryce, his father's resourceful son, needed to take the remote out of her hand. The commercial for washing powder was substituted for his face as swiftly as everything she had come to believe in the past six years was reduced to nothing just moments later. But first, he took her breath away, still, like no time had passed whatsoever. There were those pristine eyes, so clear when he wanted them to be and so obscure when he refused to let her in. The graceful hands that slid down her forearm with perspicuity she couldn't deny even when it had been forbidden to say it out loud or indecent to put it into words. And his mouth that she had until then believed only lied to her unwillingly.

"Well, if that was my baby daddy, I wouldn't find anyone else worthy of me shaving my legs for every day as well," Sara heard Selena's voice somewhere in the distance, and she wanted to ask the two women if they understood now why she had surrendered herself to loving an angel. God, she had not seen enough of him when they had been both alive. Now she had an impulse to laugh because it had been so long and she sometimes feared his face was skewed in her recollections, and this footage she had never seen before pictured him just the way she kept him in her heart. And then it dawned on her that he looked older; not much, but the lines on his face had deepened just enough for her to notice. This hadn't been shot before their meeting in Fox River; no, this was him now, years after she had first told their son that he was dead.

A short text at the top of the screen confirmed that she wasn't crazy. Earlier today, New York. The simple words reverberated in her mind until they disintegrated into unintelligible sounds, and yet they weren't any less brutal.

"Mom?" Bryce said, his voice now drained of elation. She knew she should do away with the worry that tinged his tone, but it was as if all her edicts of the past six years, that it wasn't about her but about her son, were now belittling her.

"Michael Scofield wins engineer of the year," Moni read out loud the larger text. "They're giving out fucking awards to engineers?"

They were, of course. But not to people like Michael Scofield. Not to people who were supposed to have died six fucking years ago.

So this was what he had meant that night in Gila, when her heart was still racing from their closeness and everything was surreal, as if the desert heat got the best of her. We'll have whatever you want, his words caressed her skin that ached for his touch, I'll give you everything I possibly can. She was such a fucking idiot. For six years, she had been keeping him alive, refusing to make him a ghost to let go of. She thought it was the least she could do after all he had given her and what he would have bestowed on her had he not run out of time. She had clung to his faith in their future when she struggled to have faith in herself.

"Turn it off," said Selena and dashed passed Sara, taking the remote out of Bryce's terrified hands and changing the channel. Sara barely registered the gesture, let alone the trepidation on her son's face.

Sara had always disregarded her own looks, but knew that men's stares flocked to her. There were no plans in most men's heads that extended beyond the night at hand; yet she was damn sure she could find a decent man who would treat her well and accept Bryce as his own. He'd have some boring job, like a professor or an economist, that would never put them on a bullet's path. Together they would give Bryce a childhood every kid deserved, a room of his own and shoes that weren't bought on sale, and, fuck, she would have a microwave.

She had consciously rebuffed every chance of that. She at peace with having loved, and won and lost, both at the same time. Her parents had forgotten how to love each other when she was still very young. Knowing, however distortedly, that she was the obligation that kept them in a loveless marriage contributed to the denial she had sought in morphine. She wouldn't do that to her kid, so it was just her and Bryce, from the day Bruce had told her about the building which, as it now turned out, burned only for her.

She felt like she was going to be sick.

"Mom?" Bryce asked for her again, but the only response he got was her turning around and teetering to the kitchen sink. Leaning on it with her hands, she realized she was too enraged to be sick.

All the while, Michael lived lavishly in New York. The wine red shirt he was wearing probably cost more than she had spent on Bryce's clothes throughout his life. The award he had been presented was just one more immortalization of his name, his real name that definitely hadn't been taken from a death certificate of a girl that had passed away decades ago. Shaking hands with people never made him feel like a liar. And fucking New York! He lived in the center of the world as the world stared at him, completely enthralled. Apparently his plan to make everything right had been victorious – it was just that somewhere along the way, it had stopped including her.

How long had it taken him to forget her? Because even after she had boarded her way out, Michael Scofield could find her with ease. Chloe's father knew she had disembarked in Marseille, and if he had found out about Gandhi, he would know Geraldine helped women who needed to erase their names, and he would connect the dots. He was Michael fucking Scofield. Surely designing award-winning buildings was arduous and time-consuming work, but if he cared like he had led her to believe, he would come to her. In six years, if he loved her like he tricked her into believing underneath the sheets in Gila, he could spare a day. So how long had been until he found another woman to drink fucking orange juice with every morning?

Her life in Lille might not be difficult, but it sure as hell wasn't easy. When Bryce was a little over two years old, he came down with a fever that stayed for a week and no one had an explanation for. He was admitted to the hospital, and there was no one there to reassure her, however feebly, that everything would be okay. He was the only kid in his class whose father was never there to film him at school recitals. She had to be the one to find Mademoiselle Klein and figure out how to pay the bill, because damn it, if her kid did have Low Latent Inhibition, he would get the best help she could give him. And all the while, Michael was in New York.

***

Selena wasn't sure what exactly Aunt Karen said, but it was definitely not a nice word and Aunt Karen never swore. Together with the word, she pushed a pile of washed and unwashed dishes off the counter, and those she had missed the first time, she returned for just seconds later.

Years had passed since she had last been in the same room as her father, but Selena still remembered how afraid she was every time he had started thrashing around. Her mom had just stoically watched, buoyed up by spirits, much like she was right now when her eyebrows were raised so high it was almost funny. She loved her mom, of course she did, but she was just so fucking useless when it was up to her to step up.

Selena looked at Bryce, who was now in a full-blown screaming mode, and intercepted him just before he could run to his mom. He kicked in an attempt to free himself, but she just clasped her arms around him tighter, just like that police officer had when she had finally had enough and dialed the emergency number. She carried Bryce out of the apartment and across the hall to hers. There she reluctantly let him go and sat down in front of the door so that he couldn't reach for the door handle.

"Hey," Selena said in the soothing voice Aunt Karen always used when women in a fit of hysterics were brought to her. "It's gonna be okay."

"Why is mom so angry at dad?" he asked, and his tiny frame convulsed with confusion.

"Bryce, that video you showed her, of your dad, it was shot today."

"No. Dad's dead," he resolutely shook his head. Bryce was a very smart boy. It was so effortless to forget there were still months to go until his sixth birthday. He knew numbers much bigger than those in his math textbook and could probably name more countries of the world than his teacher. Yet he could not make sense of what had just happened, and he was shaking his head so fiercely that Selena worried he would make himself sick.

How could dad be alive, Bryce wondered. The very first thing he had ever learned about him was that he was dead. That he had died so that Bryce could be with his mom. Okay, maybe not the very first thing, but definitely one of the first.

So why was he now on TV, all dressed up and looking just like he did in the photographs? Why wasn't he here, with him and mom? If he loved them as much as mom always said he did?

Had he lied?

Did mom lie?

He thought of the scar on mom's arm. Mom always said that dad had made sure that the bad guys could never hurt her – or Bryce – like that again. Now he wondered if dad was the bad guy; if dad was the one who had scarred mom.

He still didn't know what to think when a while later, mom knocked on the door, with Aunt Moni towering behind her.

She told him they were going to go see dad, and just a brief hour ago, the words would be a miracle. They used that word on the news all the time; it was a miracle when a very sick lady got better overnight and could leave a special hospital and go home. Or when a soccer team was losing 0-2 only to score three goals in the last ten minutes. But the people on TV were always happy when miracles happen to them. Most of them were crying.

Mom wasn't crying.

And she definitely wasn't happy. Bryce could tell she was still very, very upset. She clenched her teeth together, like every time a woman she was treating claimed it was a one-time thing that wouldn't happen again. Her expression didn't loosen even when they were back in their apartment and he was tying his sneakers and she was emptying the mug in which they kept the change into her wallet. It was probably the money for the tickets, he thought, but he wasn't sure how they would get to New York. They always went everywhere by bus, and no buses could cross oceans, Bryce knew that. Seeing dad didn't sound like a good idea at all, and, judging from her discouraging silence, Selena seemed to agree with him.

But mom put on a jacket and asked him if he was ready. Of course he wasn't. Mom wasn't either. They had nothing packed and they always packed before going somewhere. He needed his toothbrush and a change of clothes and the extra pair of socks in case it rained. And then there was the origami. The paper rose and the crane with the code in dots. Should they take them with them to show dad that they had kept them all these years? And what about Bryce's books? His collection was his pride and he wanted to show it to dad! But the thing was, Bryce didn't know anymore whether dad deserved to know about them.

He finished tying his sneakers and his fingers fumbled like they hadn't in a couple of years. Then he got up and made sure his back was perfectly straight, but the cold feeling in his tummy that made it hard to breathe was still there.

"Yes," he said and returned mom's unwavering stare. Then, when she turned around to put her phone and the charger in her purse, he surreptitiously stashed the origami in the side pocket of his backpack.

***

God, what am I doing to him, Sara thought. They were on the bus heading for Paris and it was past midnight. They had barely caught the bus. If they hadn't, she knew she would make them wait for the next one right there, at the station, even if all the stars would have disappeared by the time it arrived. Tonight she didn't trust herself to get back home.

They had been lucky to get seats. The bus was filled with tourists; their backpacks were stuffed under their seats and opened bags of chips nauseated her. They put jackets under their heads and chatted with each other in frustratingly low tones. Some were watching movies on their tablets and bright screens illuminated their faces in silence. She couldn't get that news clip out of her mind, no matter how much she tried to focus on something, anything else. She had only caught seconds, but they dragged in front of her eyes like hours.

Bryce sat next to her, but his tiny body was turned away from her. He kept his eyes firmly on the passing lights of Lille they were leaving behind. He knew these streets so well; he usually tested his knowledge by predicting which crossroad or which church they would drive by next, and he could recognize them even in the neon lights of the dark. Tonight his lips were pressed tightly together and his back was so straight it had to ache. The driver had advised the passengers to put the seatbelts on, but Bryce was one of the few who complied. Unequivocally doing the right thing was just one more trait he didn't get from her.

What was she doing to him?

She should reassure him, tell him that everything would be fine but what did she know? She had read online that Michael received the full pardon after he and Lincoln had exposed some kind of a government conspiracy. He was now a national hero and worked for an elite engineering firm in New York. He was free, and alive.

She could tell Bryce that, but it didn't answer what they both wanted to know.

Sara Tancredi had been declared dead in absentia. That was all over the internet as well.

It was almost two already and it was a school night. She shouldn't be dragging Bryce to Paris when he should be tucked in. They could have easily set off in the morning, with the mist of the unslept night upon them rather than the unsettled affect still clouding their judgment.

But there was a vial of morphine hidden behind the jars on the top shelf of one of the kitchen cupboards. She kept it for emergencies, just in case someone fell ill unexpectedly. It was untouched, just like she had always liked it, and tonight was a very, very bad night. She knew that if they stayed in their apartment, tomorrow there would be a mark on her arm where the syringe had gone in.

She couldn't let that happen. She couldn't think of Michael, of Bruce, of the betrayal that was cutting through her like the electroshocks when she had been held underwater. Suddenly the scar, the same scar she had come to see as a proof of their love, was hurting again, as if there was still a shard cutting her open, and the chips smelled of blood. As her mind brimmed with want, she focused on the only safety net she still had.

Bryce was why she was doing this, she repeated to herself like it was a mantra her sponsor had taught her all those years ago. As far she was concerned, Michael Scofield could rot in fucking hell. But he had a son and damn it, he should know.

She ruffled Bryce's hair, but he barely stirred. The bus was on the highway now, and the only lights were the cars they were passing. Yet his eyes still acknowledged every single one, attentive as if he was counting.

"Go to sleep, baby," she said and kissed the top of his head.

"I'm not tired," Bryce said softly, and somehow he seemed to sit even straighter, just like the kids the police brought in as the snapshots of what they had witnessed still flashed in front of their eyes.

He had no way of knowing, of course, but Michael had said the exact same thing that night in Gila. They were some of the very last words Michael said ever said to her, so trivial yet potent. The heat of the night had been enriched by the burning of their skin and they had opened the window for zephyr to remind them their touches were real. She lay so close to him that only her hair was sprawled across her side of the bed. His arms, darkened with ink yet so light on every inch of her skin, were pressing her closer to him, even though there was no space left for the heat of love between them. Their foreheads touched, and he stared into her eyes as if he saw her for the first time with every blink. Even in her memory, it still felt real.

"You should get some sleep," she told him and tried to match the lightness of his fingers as she caressed his cheek. Under her touch, he finally closed his eyes.

"I'm not tired," he said and inhaled deeply as if her skin still carried a scent other than the one of what they had done.

She knew he lied. He had been on a run for days, and with that agent and a plethora of others chasing him, he didn't grant himself sleep. She doubted he had slept much during his last nights in Fox River as well. But he concealed his tiredness just like he did the pain.

"Liar," she whispered. It seemed impossible, but somehow he managed to move even closer to her. He draped one leg over hers, and her body tensed up again. He had to realize she was starting to agree that sleep was a bad idea, but he didn't act on it. A smile relaxed his lips, and he tangled his fingers in her hair.

"I have you here, now," he said. "We don't need to run, and there's no one pointing a gun at us. Just for now, it's us. It seems sacrilegious to sleep it away."

"I'm not going anywhere," she said. "I'll be here when you wake up. I promise."

She dipped her head, just a little bit, and gently kissed his lips. They were so close to each other that the touch of their foreheads didn't break.

"I promise," she whispered only for him to hear, and she meant so much more than what should be their first morning together.

He must have believed her, as he was asleep within seconds, giving himself over to her in his entirety. Hours later, all he woke up to was a broken promise. Perhaps it was selfish of her to reserve the indignation only for herself.

"Try? Please?" she now said to Bryce, who still refused to look at her. He didn't throw himself at her and wrapped his arms around her with all the strength he could gather. He leaned his head on the wall instead, the curtain offering him a brief pillow. Sara let her hand linger on his shoulder until she was sure that he, too, dozed off in seconds.

***

When he opened his eyes, it was daytime already, but they were still on the bus.

Mom hadn't slept. He could always tell when she had a bad night. Her eyes were open slightly wider than usual, like she needed more light to see through her weariness. And they were a bit red, as if she had cried. But mom never cried. Sometimes he wished that she did, because he always felt better after weeping in her arms.

She noticed that he was awake and kissed the top of his head, like she had a habit of doing.

"Morning, baby," she said and gave him a smile neither of them believed. "We are almost there."

She needn't have told him; they had been in Paris enough times for him to recognize its skyline against the rising sun, the boutiques they always drove by, and the little park just across the bus station. It made sense that they would go to Paris if they were to see dad, Bryce thought. Wherever they went, Nice, Marseille, Spain, they always changed buses in Paris.

He still didn't know which bus could take them all the way to New York, and that cold feeling in his tummy was back.

But they didn't change buses this morning. They didn't even loiter around the station, as if the bus wasn't there yet. Mom walked straight out onto the street and bought them their favorite croissants at their favorite pastry shop. Then they stopped at the market and bought some fruit. By the time they found an empty bench in the park they liked, Bryce didn't like what the string of his favorites insinuated this morning. He couldn't finish breakfast, and mom didn't ask him if he was feeling weird, like she always did when he barely ate anything. The omission made him feel worse.

Later they walked by the Saint Michel Fountain. Of all monuments in Paris, this one was Bryce's favorite. It reminded him of dad. There was Archangel Michael, tall, strong, and with a beautiful set of wide, graceful wings. A sword was in his hand, and he raised it above his head with breathtaking ease. He didn't take pleasure in killing, but he knew that the good was worth fighting for. Archangel Michael trounced the devil, just like his dad had beaten the bad guys. He might have died and become an angel himself, but mom had always said that as long as Bryce and mom were together, happy and healthy, dad won. Two dragons had come to the devil's aide, but they could not conquer the love dad felt for Bryce and mom.

He didn't mind having a dad with wings, perched on one of those fluffy white clouds in the sky from where he could watch him and mom and make sure they were okay, then say hello when the day was almost over and the sky was adorned in different shades of red. Bryce was totally okay with it, as long as his dad was still a good man who loved him and mom most in the whole world. He didn't like this dad who was on television and whom people applauded and who upset mom.

Today Bryce wasn't sure whether his dad was the archangel or the devil. For the first since last night, he grabbed mom's hand and she squeezed it, as if she was tackling the same doubt.

They finally stopped at a building that had American flags in front of it. He recognized it. It was the most American thing he could ever see in France.

The Embassy.

But mom couldn't go anywhere near anything American. She told him that, all the time. People would recognize her and take her away, maybe take both of them away. He loved nobody and nothing more than his mom, and it scared him just to think of losing her, let alone standing so close to a place that could tear her away. Dad wasn't worth this, he decided.

He turned to face mom, only to realize she had knelt beside him and her hands were now reaching for his shoulders.

No, no, no, he wanted to shout. He wanted to plead to go back home. Was Selena up in time for school? He wasn't there to wake her in case she overslept. What if moms came with kids last night? Who would take care of them? He had the appointment with Mademoiselle Klein in two days. The school year was ending in a week and he was supposed to get a diploma for finishing the first grade. Mom said they would frame it and hang it on the wall, just like she had done with her big diplomas in America. How would they do this if mom wasn't around anymore?

And they were in Paris! If mom didn't want to go back home, they could go on a little trip. He loved the sea, so maybe they could head south? Or if the heat was expected, maybe travel up the mountains? They had been to so many places already, but so much more waited to be discovered. They could do it without dad, just like they had his whole life.

"Bryce," mom intoned in a voice that caused pressure to gather behind his eyes, and he wanted to yell even louder, yet no words left his petrified mouth, again. "I need you to listen to me right now, okay? Really listen."

Bryce wanted to shake his head, because he didn't want to hear this, because mom didn't need to say it. He hated his dad for causing all this, he decided. Okay, maybe not truly hated, but he could, over time, if he really put his mind to it. Because he didn't need dad. He didn't want dad if having dad around upset mom.

"Whatever happens today, I need you to remember that I love you. I never knew it was possible to love somebody as much as I love you until you came. I need you to never forget that. I love you, Bryce."

"I love you too, mom," he said and flung himself in her arms. He closed his eyes and really, really meant it. Maybe, he thought, maybe if I mean it strongly enough, mom would realize that we don't need dad and we would go home and no bad guys would ever take her away.

Mom held him, but he hadn't meant it strongly enough because she let go of him way too quickly. She looked at him, and there were tears in her eyes, something that only happened when it was dad's birthday and they had traveled for a week to reach a beach in Portugal where the same ocean that rippled on the beaches of Panama now engulfed their bare feet. It was the closest they could get to a life dad had envisioned for them, mom always said.

They walked up the cobbled path to the entrance of the Embassy. It was early, so there was no one in the reception area yet, and they could go straight to the counter. Bryce tried to make himself as heavy as he could, but mom's hand in his didn't twitch, as if his resistance was a trifle she didn't even register.

The lady behind the counter smiled at them, particularly widely when her eyes landed on Bryce. And when she greeted them, she spoke in the same way as he and mom did. It usually filled Bryce with excitement, for it was such a rare occurrence and it always made him feel like he was somehow closer to home, but today it only exacerbated the cold that paralyzed him.

"My name is Sara Tancredi," mom said. He had heard her say the name quite a few times before, but it was always only for his ears. Now that it was directed at someone else, it sounded alien to him, like he was hearing it for the first time. Like somehow, it became real for the first time. "I escaped custody in Chicago six years ago."

The lady (the nametag she wore gave her name as Laura) didn't seem to understand what mom was saying, and he could tell it surprised mom. So she repeated her name again, and this time, Laura's eyebrows shot up. Bryce squeezed mom's hand tighter and glanced around, waiting for bad guys to come.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! <3  
> Sorry this is so long, but I hope you like where it leads to.  
> Please review.

Five hours later, Bryce was feeling much better. Not yet okay, but better.

No bad guys had come when mom said her name aloud. No one had taken her away. Laura excused herself and disappeared through the door behind her, only to return a couple of minutes later with a man in a grey suit that was clearly trying to hide how perplexed he was. He led them upstairs, to a large office with a roundtable. There was a jug of juice on it and a box of both croissants and donuts. They smelled so nice and were still warm and it made Bryce feel a little bit hungry. Bad guys wouldn't give him food, right? But the circles under mom's eyes were still in stark contrast to her pale skin. He decided not to eat until mom would, too.

Every time they heard a sound of steps, mom squeezed his hand so hard it hurt a little. But nothing bad happened. A woman took mom's photograph while another distracted him with a bunch of T-shirts with American motives. He asked if they had any books about New York, and she gave him three different ones! He got a toothbrush and could finally clean his teeth, and mom looked a bit better after she washed her face and brushed her hair. They got to call Aunt Moni and Selena (she had woken up in time for school. But she told him that she had decided to stay home, as they were all idiots and there was only a week left before the summer break anyway). The day was really looking up at that point, but he knew better than to assume everything would be fine. He may be only five and a half years old, but he had witnessed himself how something promising can turn into a calamity in a blink of an eye.

Last year, Selena's father had parked his truck in front of their home. He had a chip he was very proud of and had brought Selena cake, presents and promises of a large house, and even though she had thrown the cake in the trash, refused to open the presents, she eventually asked if there would be a microwave in the house. Bryce didn't like the prospect of his sister moving out, and when he tried to picture his day without her, she kept popping up in his plans. But he was happy for her, for you were supposed to be happy when people you loved were happy, and he knew how ecstatic he would feel if one day a car would stop in that spot and his dad would step out.

Three days later, Selena's father found out that Aunt Moni sometimes spent a night at another man's house, and it enraged him so much that he hit her so hard Bryce's mom couldn't patch her up and she had to go to the hospital. Selena threw all the shoes he had bought her in his head, cursed him, cursed himself, and then the police came and put him in prison.

And Bryce still wasn't sure whether his dad was a good man or not.

The next person that came to him and mom was a man with a badge. He called himself an agent, and mom's face turned even pastier as she asked him not to do it in front of her son. Bryce didn't know what she meant by "it", but then the man took mom's fingerprints and not only let Bryce watch, but took his as well. Honestly, he couldn't understand why mom wouldn't want him to have his fingerprints taken, as it was fun.

Besides, Bryce knew that agents were a special kind of police officers. And should dad turn out to be a bad guy, he was certain agents would stop dad before he could hurt him or mom. Surely mom had to realize that as well? So while the idea of seeing dad still terrified him, he was sanguine enough to have a little faith again.

***

By all accounts, Lincoln Burrows was having a time of his life in Panama. He started his mornings just before the sunrise and headed for a run along the beach. On his way back, he stopped at his favorite bar and had his first beer of the day. He was usually joined by a pair of leggy blondes in a skimpy bikini. Some days he relented and put tanning oil on their backs before they handed to the beach, but most mornings he just kissed them both on a cheek before heading home. There he showered, put on one of the multicolored Hawaiian shirts he kept in his closet and got into his 1972 Vista Cruiser, which he had bought for a bargain unattainable in America. He drove five miles up the coast – the cruiser likely wouldn't take him much farther anyway – to a bar where a group of expats congregated every morning until early afternoon.

Tough guys like Lincoln didn't cook, of course. His fridge was always empty except for beer and ketchup, for despite living in Panama for over a year, he still hadn't found a pizzeria that used enough ketchup. If he had to name one thing he missed most about his life in America, it would be the pizzas.

His seafront house was the most expensive one in a twenty-mile radius, and he couldn't fill it with enough furniture to stop the echoes wherever he made a single step. The abundance of space, though, turned out to be a great excuse for hosting barbeques in the evenings. They were open door, and everyone was invited. Some nights he moved from beer to something much stronger and the next day could never remember why he ended up falling asleep on a beach, half buried in the sand. One time he returned to his house to discover that someone had snatched his brand new TV. He didn't bother reporting it to the police; he just went to the mall and bought a new one. He could afford it, after all. And he fucking deserved to be able to do so.

He hadn't opened a bar like he had told everyone he would years ago. There were more than enough good bars around his house anyway. A surf or diving shop also hadn't come to fruition, as he realized he had no fucking clue about neither. His only obligation these days was helping his elderly neighbor bring groceries to her house. Sometimes he helped people with repairs; he took off his V-neck shirt, and as the sun reflected off his sweaty, muscular chest, adorned with tattoos that captivated women and men alike, no one had any doubts. If there was ever a rock star, their name was Lincoln Burrows. He'd lie if he purported he disliked the attention. It had been years since he had last felt indomitable.

Lincoln Burrows was absolutely miserable in Panama, but of course he would never, ever admit that to anyone, let alone do something about it.

It was the day of the first World Cup semi-final, and he was to host a viewing party. He had stacked his freezer with meat, emptied the nearby store of beer, called everyone he knew to remind them to bring ice, made sure that the grill was working and hosed the chairs, and he was going inside to grab a cold beer after having cleaned the pool when his phone rang.

It was LJ. It had been over a year, but he still hadn't forgiven his dad for moving to Panama and rarely visited, especially now when he was working as a freelance photographer in New York. Lincoln suspected that the only reason he came those few times was that LJ's uncle suggested it.

Lincoln wasn't at all surprised that LJ's voice was disgruntled. It was the words that caught him off guard.

"Dad, come on, just call Abigail back," LJ said.

Lincoln's breath got caught in his throat. It was a weird sensation, hearing a name that had been so prominent in his thoughts for so long, and his tongue tumbled as if he was a fucking schoolboy. Seriously, the beads of sweat that sneaked on his forehead were an embarrassment.

"Agent Spencer?" LJ added, thinking his father was reticent because of his stubbornness, which, Lincoln had to admit, was an explanation he wished was true. "She's been trying to reach you for an hour and you're not picking up. She told me to tell you to call her back."

"Why…"

"I don't know. Call her."

He sat down on the couch in front of the television (how come he never realized how gigantic the thing was? And why the fuck did he need this big of a television?). He checked the answered calls and there they were, all ten of them.

Fuck.

It was a little late for her to be calling him to berate him in every way he deserved. So she had to be calling about…

Fuck.

He remembered how out of place her hair had smelled the day they had been in the morgue; how it annoyed him, because he knew that he could never dissociate her from the desolateness in which he had been when he had first seen her. It was as if the proximity of her, regardless of how much he longed for it, inevitably returned him into that interrogation room when everything was broken.

Why a woman like that would voluntarily work as a Grim Reaper (for Lincoln still refused to believe agents could do good things), he could never figure out.

He almost ended the call when it first rang. By the second beep, he told himself that he was a fucking man and should act like one. Thank god she picked up after the third ring, because his finger was already reaching to end the call.

He spoke before she could greet or condemn him. Or maybe she had spoken first, but his nerves were too loud to register.

"Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't have the pho…"

"Lincoln, you need to come to New York," she said and sounded out of breath, like she was running. He wanted to tell her to slow down, for that woman had always worked too much. But of course, he had squandered his right to say stuff like that to her.

"What?" was the genius response he came up with.

"New York. It's Sara. Lincoln, she's alive."

"What?"

"I don't know. She turned up at the embassy in France. I'm on my way there. I'm still waiting for the fingerprint comparison, but Lincoln, I've seen the photograph, and it's her. I haven't told Michael yet. But I think you should be there when he finds out."

He would do anything that woman asked him to, but he wasn't grabbing the car keys because of her. Lincoln was ready to go home; he had probably never wanted to leave in the first place, but his damn pride had careened him away. But now, god damn it, he finally had an excuse to return.

***

By the time the door of the American embassy in Paris closed behind her, Abigail estimated she had been up for over thirty hours.

She had gotten the call just after one in the morning and she had just pulled the covers to her chin. The clothes she had on smelled of dirt, decomposition, and death, but she hadn't bothered changing. In six hours, she would be back at the gravesite anyway, combing through the vast woodland, looking for anything the killer might have left behind and more bones. But mainly only the latter, for her team had been up there in those fucking woods for a week now and all the soil revealed was more remains. Eight young women, making their way in the world one day and dropping off the face of the earth the next.

The only hours not spent in the hilly areas of the greater Seattle she was either in the morgue ("bones show no evidence of trauma and no apparent cause of death") or notifying another family that their cherished daughter was never coming home.

She was so fucking tired of dead women. Every day before falling asleep, she decided to quit, the first thing the following morning. She didn't need this, the bones – or the lack of them – and the answers she didn't have. Some days she was in the shower for an hour and her hair still reeked of fir. It never failed to remind her of that one time Lincoln Burrows had told her that her hair smelled too nice for the grim job she had. Maybe if he was still around these days, her hair would finally meet his approval.

At first she absolutely refused to answer the phone. If there was another body – no, bone – found, it would still be there in six, no, five and a half hours. If they had a lead, well, they didn't, so there was no need for her to reach out for the phone on her nightstand.

Tomorrow, she repeated to herself, I am quitting tomorrow. She couldn't remember the last time she had gone to sleep and the morning was still a tomorrow.

But it wouldn't stop; the ringing, it seemed to be getting louder and god damn it, the neighbor would start banging on the wall any second now. She would shout out an apology but didn't even know the gender of the neighbor, and she had claimed this bed as her own over a year ago.

"Hello?" she mumbled into the phone.

"Agent Spencer?" a voice she didn't recognize asked. People in dispatch kept rotating, but they always said the same fucking thing. "I understand you were the last agent in charge of the Scofield/Burrows case?"

She wished there had been a bone fragment uncovered instead. These calls, from Langley, were the only thing worse than matching the remains to the missing women on the wall of her office. They told her of a body part recovered that fit the parameters she had entered into a database under the name of Sara Tancredi. There must have been a couple of dozen of them since she had been transferred to the West Coast. She never told Michael about any of them. None was a match, of course, for there would never be a match.

That was why she was reluctant to quit, she told herself those mornings. Because whoever would get the case after her, would definitely let Michael know about every fucking call.

"We have a lead on the whereabouts of Sara Tancredi," the voice (it introduced itself, of course, but the voices had lately started to blend in her mind) told her. That was a wording she hadn't heard before. She wished she could be excited by it, but the person had to be new and she felt sorry for their rose-tinted spectacles.

"Could you give me the name of the county so that I can get in touch with their medical examiner?" she said the same words every time. But this time, there was no county to be given. She had laughed when they told her about the woman at the embassy, because France was on a different continent, and alive, well that was impossible.

Now she was running up the stairs in the said embassy, for she had been shown a photograph and the alikeness was too great to be caused by the lack of sleep. And as the agent opened the door of an office, there she was. Sara Tancredi, the Governor's daughter, the doctor that had aided and abetted the Fox River Eight. A woman tortured and effectively killed six years ago.

Alive.

She was sitting on a chair behind the roundtable, the chair that gave her the best view of the door. Her arms were firmly crossed on her chest, as if she was desperately holding herself together. As their eyes met, Sara's were militantly devoid of any expression. The hair was longer, darker than on the photographs, but it was her.

No wonder they hadn't found her. There had been no body to find.

How?

The expression on Abigail's face was far from deadpan, much less professional. So she turned to close the door in a manner prolonged enough to get in a few deep breaths.

They didn't stay in long. As she turned to face Sara again, she realized that there was someone else in the room. Standing in the corner left of her, by the trash bin and with an empty plastic cup in his hand, was a little boy.

Of course there were millions of boys with the same eye color as his, but this was not just any boy. He looked nothing like Sara, but so much like his…

Holy fuck.

She hadn't been around Lincoln Burrows for over a year, ever since that chickenshit had fled to Panama, but his language was increasingly spilling all over her tongue.

As she slowly neared the boy, his eyes didn't move off her face for a second. They retained caution, and his lips were pressed together in the same guarded, indiscernible fashion that had peeved her so many times when she was talking to…

"Hey," she said, squatting in front of the boy. His eyes didn't flicker. "I'm Agent Spencer, but you can call me Abigail. I came to talk to your mom. What's your name?"

The boy's eyes darted in Sara's direction, and she must have nodded.

"Bryce."

"That's a very pretty name," she smiled. "How old are you, Bryce?"

There was no need for the question, of course. Turning the answer around in her mind would tell her something she had already known.

"Five and a little."

"You're a young man, then," she said and, holy fuck. But she had drunk too many cups of coffee and emptied too many cans of Red Bulls to still be sleeping. "Listen, there's a friend of mine outside the room. And I'm sure he could be coaxed into getting you some hot chocolate or juice, whatever you want. What do you say?"

She had never seen the agent before and had no idea what his name was. But it should do the trick. Or so she figured.

The boy didn't answer right away. His eyes lingered on her face and their intensity provoked the same anxiety as the stare of his…

He took his time to answer, just like his father, never doing anything without thinking it through first.

Well. There might have been one thing Michael Scofield hadn't thought completely through.

If only everyone's shortcomings resulted in this kind of a miracle, she smirked.

"I say you are just trying to get me out of this office so that you can talk to my mom alone, Agent Spencer," Bryce said.

Well, of course she was. It was only after she heard Sara chuckle that she let out a laugh. She tried to cough it away, but her lips were still out of control when she sat across the table from Sara, the black folder she had come armed with placed in front of her.

"Hi, Sara. I'm Agent Spencer. I'm the agent in charge of your case," she said. She should have called her Miss Tancredi, but she had been looking for her, hearing about her, for so long that it was impossible to think of her as anyone but Sara.

"I was told you were coming."

"I'm sorry it took so long. Paris is quite far away from America."

"Not far enough, obviously."

"How are you?" the agent asked. Sara looked okay, apart from the weariness of her eyes and tense posture. But that was to be expected, Abigail figured, after spending six years looking over your shoulder, both for malice and solace of what had passed.

She couldn't resist scanning Sara's hands for a ring. Nothing, not even the skin discoloration indicating there used to be one there. It definitely shouldn't buoy her up as much as it did.

"Can we just get down to it, please?" Sara sighed. "Look, I'm not expecting the charges to be dropped, no jail time. I jumped bail. I left the door open. But he escaped. Isn't that automatically ten years? So maybe they'll have some mercy on me?"

"You think you are still a wanted criminal?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"So you came here, to the embassy, to turn yourself in?"

"Michael Scofield should know he has a son."

"You thought Michael Scofield was in jail?"

"No. I thought he was dead. Then I saw him on the news yesterday. Apparently he got named an engineer of the year," Sara tried to sound nonchalant, but her voice wavered. What was it about him that held such sway over her? Six years. They hadn't been on the same hemisphere for six years and had been in each other's proximity for only two months. Yet after all the winters she had ached for him and all the summers she had spent hating him, just saying his name out loud threatened to break her shamelessly.

"So I take it you don't know what happened in the last six years?" Abigail carefully asked, and Sara shook her head, just once. Her arms were no longer crossed on her chest, as if subconsciously she had given up fighting. "Um. Sara, all charges against you have been dropped. Your medical license has been reinstated."

"My medical license?" Sara repeated, aghast. "How?"

How do you think, Abigail almost laughed before it dawned on her that Sara's surprise wasn't affected. She had no idea.

It was incredibly sad telling families of those poor women in Seattle that all that was left of their smiling daughters were incomplete skeletons. Some parents deafened her with their anguished screams, others made her want for a break of silence. This, though, filled her with a completely different kind of sadness. You are someone's entire world and you don't know. You don't hear the love in their voice when they say your name and you never count the tears imbued with the absence of you.

"Okay, let's get some stuff out of the way first, okay? I know that you and Michael Scofield met up in Gila and that you were abducted from the parking lot. And now you are in France. How did you get here?"

"Didn't Michael tell you?" Sara snorted, once again crossing her arms on her chest.

"How would he know?"

"Well, he asked Bruce Bennett to get me out of America, for one," Sara said, wrapping the jacket she was wearing tighter around her, as though it was her carapace. As though she couldn't muster enough of the spite she whole-heartedly believed Michael deserved.

Abigail leaned forward.

"Sara… Michael has no idea that you are alive. He thinks you were murdered by the Company," she intoned. Murder was an understatement, but there was no need for details, the binding, whipping, beating, decapitation, all of that caught on film.

Sara's laughter was not the reaction she expected.

"He told you that? Then I guess you don't know that Michael Scofield says a lot of things he doesn't mean."

"You really think that Michael Scofield, a man who got his brother out of prison regardless of the consequences, would get you to safety only to never check up on you again? That he would abandon his own son?"

Of course she didn't. Some may say that she hadn't known him long enough for such a claim, but they had met in a situation that was the embodiment of what family meant to Michael Scofield. Underneath the rage, the betrayal, of course she knew it. But it was easier to be mad than to cry all the tears she had been keeping in for six years, even though now they could no longer break her beyond repair because it hadn't been real. And as long as she was mad, she couldn't get too hopeful, only to be disappointed once more.

"So I'm guessing Bruce Bennett is dead?" she asked.

Agent Spencer nodded, adding that it had been a heart attack a few months after her disappearance. Then she told her about the Company and the four years it had taken Michael and Lincoln to take them down, careful to only mention the most important events. What she hadn't told her was that Michael had done it in exchange for Sara's full pardon and she only briefly glossed over his efforts to find her. Sara told her about Lance and the blueberry pies and Costa Rica and Geraldine, but time for details would come later. Without saying it out loud, they both agreed that it was high time for a little boy to meet his father.

***

Bryce had had quite a few good days already. There was that day he and mom had been on a sandy beach and built sandcastles. When it started raining, out of the clear blue sky, they ran back to their hotel and straight to bed to warm up their toes while sipping the best hot chocolate he had ever tasted. Or that day when Aunt Moni borrowed a car from the man she had been spending time with and all four of them drove the secluded roads of the countryside and mom let Bryce sit in the front for a few minutes so that he could help Aunt Moni, who was hopeless when it came to maps, find the right road. Never before had he felt so grown up as that day.

Yet today might just be unprecedented in its glory. He could drink all the hot chocolate he wanted and eat as many donuts as he could and he got new books for his collection of travel guides. He was assured that he would meet his dad very, very soon. And mom was happy when she told him that. As they got in the largest black car Bryce had ever seen – it looked just like the ones detectives on television drove –, mom was smiling. It was in such contrast to the start of the day that he wondered if he perhaps had dozed off and today was a whole different day.

"Have you ever been on a plane?" Agent Abigail (she said he should just call her Abigail, but he thought she deserved the title because she really buoyed mom up) asked him as they drove up to the airport.

Bryce shook his head enthusiastically. He knew all about airports, of course. Thibaut traveled by planes all the time and never forgot to mention every detail of it. He couldn't imagine airport windows that were bigger than their entire apartment. And all the information signs that guided you to the terminal! Airports sounded like gigantic mazes you had to find your way out of and he was sure his eyes would never get bored.

So he was a little disappointed when they didn't enter the airport at the main entrance where the stream of people never seemed to cease. They drove past the long row of taxis and the people on sidewalks were getting fewer until there was no sidewalk anymore and they were on a runway. It was wider than any highway he had ever seen and so long that he could not see its end.

They got out, and then there was a sound so loud he almost had to cover his ears. Mom mouthed something and pointed upwards with her hand, and when he looked up, his jaw dropped. A plane was flying right above them! He could see its wheels, its engines, and it was the largest thing he had ever seen.

But they didn't board a big plane. Their plane was much, much smaller, and its nose was more pointy than that of the larger plane he had seen. Mom's jaw dropped at the sight of it, too, and Bryce knew this was way cooler than the big plane, for he didn't know anyone who had ever been on a private jet.

They climbed the stairs that he later watched being pulled up so that there wasn't a hole in the plane anymore. The seats were black and so big his legs dangled in the air. He was pretty sure another boy his size could easily fit into the seat with him. A woman named Kelly brought him a glass of apple juice, and then Agent Abigail took his hand and led him to the cockpit. It was there that he decided this was his favorite day.

The pilot, a middle-aged man with a thick beard and a smile so wide that his eyes became nothing more than straight lines, sat him on his lap and told him about the instrument panel. He pointed at different small screens and buttons and explained what they were. There was the radar, a meter that would tell him how high they would be flying. He even let Bryce touch the control wheel.

He had to finish his juice before takeoff. He held mom's hand as the pilot turned on the engines and the plane started moving and he was sure that no bus he had ever been on drove so fast. Something pressed him into his seat and they were airborne. Looking through the window, he could see the buildings getting smaller until they were mere dots and then he saw brown patches that were probably fields and blue curvy lines that were rivers, and then suddenly, the clouds were everywhere. It was such a fascinating sight that he forgot he had planned on reading and learning about the city in which dad lived.

Exactly two hours and forty minutes later (he looked at his watch), the clouds began disappearing, just like the cities and the land had, and it was night. He tried to fight his heavy eyelids, for this was the best day and he didn't want to miss anything, but no one remembered to turn on the lights and he couldn't read about New York, and after a glass of milk, he fell asleep.

When he woke up, there was still dark everywhere. He looked at mom, but she was sleeping, finally. Glancing around, there was only one light on in the cabin. He opened his backpack (silently, for he didn't want to wake mom) and took out one of his new books, then undid his seatbelt and walked over to where Agent Abigail was sitting, perusing a bunch of papers.

She was surprised that he was up.

"How long till we get there?" he asked and climbed into a seat next to her. She put the papers in a folder and smiled at him.

"A couple of hours, I think. It will still be dark when we land, so you'll see all the lights."

There were pictures of New York at night in his books, and it looked majestic, even more so than Paris. He opened his book to find the said images and ask if that was how it would look like, but he realized that there was something else he wondered.

"Do you know my dad?" he asked.

"I do. I worked with him for a while."

"What is he like?" he inquired, as it was the first time he had ever met someone who knew his dad.

"You want me to ruin the surprise? Okay. You are a lot like him, you know," she gave him the answer she knew he craved. She still remembered how once upon a time she had idolized her father and wanted to lead a secretive, super important life that he had. That had been before she realized he had been killing people, his badge excusing it as the protection of his home country. What electrocuting innocent women and leaving them to drown in motel bathtubs had to do with national security, she had no idea.

"I know. I have photographs," he said, flipping the pages filled with monuments and attractions he would soon see.

"Not just that. He has a watch, too, and he is always checking the time. And he is good with maps, like you, and he notices everything. And he's always been very protective of your mom, like you."

He found the pictures he was looking for and followed the skyline with his finger.

"Do you think he'll be happy to see me?"

"He'll be so happy he'll hold you for so long you'll ask him to let go."

Bryce was sure that that would never happen. He would never beg his father to let him go, not after having spent so many years imagining how good it would feel to hold dad's hand.

"And mom? Will he be happy to see mom?"

"Your dad misses your mom very much."

"Mom misses him, too. Do you think he will buy her a microwave? Because mom really wants to have a microwave. But we never had the money or the space for it."

She barely contained laughter she knew would wake Sara. Of all the things he could want, he wanted a microwave for his mom. Only Michael Scofield's son.

"I think he could be talked into it, sure," she said.

***

It was just after five o'clock when Michael suddenly woke up. He wondered for a second what could have possibly disturbed his slumber, as for a change he couldn't recall his subconsciousness getting the best of him while he wasn't awake to control it.

Then there was the doorbell and a distant sound of someone banging on the door.

LJ.

He had no one to wake him up this early – or late – but LJ. If anything, it surprised him it didn't occur more frequently. LJ had been through just as much as his dad and uncle, having almost lost his father more than once, lost his mother, all the while fighting for his life. It was a little miracle that he had turned out the way he had, refusing to accept his father's (or uncle's) money and working toward a degree in the evenings while working through the days.

The knocking didn't relent as he hurried toward the door. In moments like this he hated the size of his apartment. Usually he liked the open floor plan and the freedom it gave him to walk for more than those eight feet of the prison cell, and there were so few walls that at least his body felt unconfined.

But it always took him forever to answer the door, and he had been told too many bad news in his life for his mind not to race to the worst possible contingencies.

It had been over a year since he saw Agent Spencer. She called on his birthday and they exchanged greetings on holidays. Neither thought there would ever be a need for them to resume their working relationship. Yet now it was five in the morning and she was on his doorstep, and before she could open her mouth, he knew she had come to deliver him the news he had let go hope of ever hearing.

They found her.

The realization hit him in a strange, unexpected way. There was the relief he had craved for years. He would no longer wonder where she lay, and there would be no more nights when the demons got the best of him and he paced up and down his office in cold sweat, going over all the information that would never leave his brain, making sure for a millionth time that he hadn't overlooked something. Now he could take her back to Chicago, give her a proper burial and a tombstone with her name so that she would never again be forgotten in the cold ground. He could bring her flowers, the paper ones so that they would not wither, and he would tell her about his day. She deserved so much more, but no matter what he did, he couldn't give her more.

What he hadn't expected, though, was the recurrence of the crushing, debilitating grief. After six years, it hadn't waned, still making it impossible to breathe as though he was in that darkened room again, watching the tape. His legs weakened, threatening to give way completely, and he leaned on the door as the room around him spun. He heard Abigail's voice somewhere in the distance, but the commotion in his head stopped him from focusing on her words. He felt her hands on his shoulders, then on the side of his face, and her words urged him to look at her.

"Michael, no. No," she repeated and he finally opened his eyes and he couldn't believe how easily it had broken him, still, after all these years.

"Michael, it's… it's a miracle. She's fine. All ten fingers and ten toes, she fine."

His eyes raced all over Abigail's face, as though searching for a feature to focus on because the words she had spoken were too slippery to hold on to. She kept talking, but between his ragged breaths, fractions about France and Bruce Bennett made little sense. Fine, that was what he repeating in his head, she's fine.

"She's fine?" he whispered because he needed to hear it one more time.

"She's fine," Abigail nodded, and he let out a breath he had thought would forever ache him.

"I take it you'll talk to her?" he asked. "Would you please tell her how incredibly happy I am that she is okay?"

"Don't be ridiculous. You'll tell her yourself."

"Are you sure she would want to see me?"

Of course she wants to see you, she wanted to scream. And you have a little boy who is so much like you it's insane. And he reads and knows numbers and adores you.

But it wasn't her news to tell.

She cleared her throat instead and prayed he wouldn't notice the professional tone she hid behind.

"I think she will be glad to see someone she knows," she lauded herself for producing such an effective bullshit statement. "Now get dressed and I'll take you to her. And take the car keys."

So that you will take your family home, she added in her mind before realizing she was an agent and usually the one behind the wheel of a government-issued vehicle.

"I, um, I took a cab," she added aloud, definitely too loudly, and thank god Michael was too overwhelmed to pick up on it, because otherwise he might start suspecting there was a little something she wasn't telling him.

***

The second time Bryce saw his dad, if you don't count the photographs, was just as unexpected as the first.

Mom was talking to one of the agents, and he sat in front of the room, waiting for her. She was having long conversations with a lot of people, and Bryce wondered what she could possibly be telling them. But he didn't want to muse on it too much. Agent Abigail had gone to get his dad. Almost two hours had since passed, and she still wasn't back. It was probably the morning traffic, he decided. The bus he took to school was often late because it got stuck in gridlock, and no one referred to Lille as the capital of the world. There had to be many more cars and buses and trucks here in New York, clogging the streets in the mornings.

According to his wristwatch, it was just after seven. He tentatively figured that he would stay in America for at least few days, and starting his day with a cup of cocoa, like he did every day in France, sounded like a good idea.

So he jumped off the chair and set off to find a vending machine that would make him a cup. He finally found one on the first floor. People were more than happy to give him the coins, and Bryce decided he really liked this day as well – if only dad could get there! As excited as he was, he felt a little bit of that cold in his tummy again. What if Agent Abigail had been wrong? What if it was taking so long because his dad didn't want to come?

He didn't want mom to wonder with worry where he had disappeared to in case she was done talking to the man. With the plastic cup that was a little bit hot, he walked down the corridors, back to her. He was hurrying, for the heat of the cup was increasing and it started to hurt a little bit.

But he forgot all about it when he saw dad.

It was on the second floor. Dad stood by the elevators, wringing his hands with a very serious look on his face. He was dressed in a suit and was just as tall and handsome as in the photographs. Bryce's jaw dropped when he saw a watch on dad's wrist, and mom was right, for the one on his tiny wrist looked just like dad's.

Dad didn't see him. He was looking down.

The plastic cup slipped out of Bryce's hand and the hot cocoa spilled across the floor, but he didn't notice. All he could see was his dad. Right there, just a few feet away. And he was just like the pictures and the video, and he had the wristwatch, and Bryce forgot to worry that he might not want him.

"Dad!" he exclaimed and started running toward him, nearly skidding in the puddle of cocoa. Then he screamed out again, because it was the first time he got to say it with dad in sight.

***

 

Michael registered the first exclamation already, for he had always noticed everything, whether he wanted it or not. Yet it didn't occur to him that it could be directed at him. Who could blame him; until just a couple of hours ago, he had renounced the possibility of ever having someone call him that.

Upon the second the repetition, he turned his head to look, more out of instinct than intention. There was a little boy running in his direction, directly to him. Michael figured someone was standing close to him, a man luckier than himself, but as he glanced around, he realized there was no one. The boy kept running, and so prevailing was the determination in his tiny legs that he didn't toddle one bit. His eyes didn't move off Michael's for a morsel of a second.

For the second time in less than two hours, Michael's heart did a flip. He always registered everything, whether he wanted it or not, so it didn't escape him that the boy's eyes were identical to the pair that stared back at him every time he caught his own reflection in a mirror.

"Dad!" the boy yelled again, and no later than when Michael dropped to his knees, the boy was in his arms with such force that it almost knocked Michael over. It effectively knocked the air out of his lungs.

The little boy wrapped his small hands around his neck and leaned his head against his chest. Michael wondered if he could hear his screaming heart, and his mind froze upon realizing that this was so impossible it could not be anything but true.

"Hey," he managed in an unsteady voice, but the boy didn't move. He clung to him as though there was a threat of something tearing them apart, again, and, god, Michael had known the feeling all too well, yet it had never been this profound before.

"Let me see you," he said softly, and the boy reluctantly unlocked his arms. He leaned back onto Michael's arms so that they faced each other, for the first time.

The boy returned Michael's look, and it was just as searching as his, just as telling. Neither said anything out loud, but there was no doubt. It wasn't just the eyes, their hue, their focus and intensity; there was the shape of the mouth, the chin. Michael would fight anyone who would dare say the boy was not his son.

"Hi," Michael said, and a smile adorned his face.

"I've missed you, dad," said the little boy and flung himself back into his father's welcoming arms. Michael placed one hand behind the boy's neck and the other in the middle of his neck, just to make sure he couldn't slip away. He closed his eyes and the time stopped. He didn't dare to speak, let alone move for fear of it dispelling the unfamiliar warmth that rippled through him. He knew it was there to stay and he wouldn't have it any other way.

He felt the boy stir in his arms. Reluctantly, he loosened the embrace, refusing to let go completely.

"What's your name?" he gently asked, and his hand reached out to touch the boy's face, just to make sure once more that he wasn't a figment of his desperate imagination. Yet he kept the caress soft; if there wasn't a boy in his arms and he'd wake up in malicious sweat, he wanted him to stay for just a little bit longer.

The boy leaned into his touch, as if he knew Michael needed a reassurance. Perhaps the boy needed it, too.

"Bryce," said the boy, and Michael wondered how it could not have occurred to him ever before that it was the most beautiful name in the world. "But you don't need to tell me your name. Mom gave it to me as the middle name."

Mom. Michael didn't know whether he was simply overwhelmed, or it was because of this boy in his arms and Sara being not only alive but in the same building, possibly just a hallway away, or the realization that he might just get the future he had thought he had lost forever six years ago. Suddenly there was pressure behind his eyes and a lump in his throat, so he bit his lower lip to prevent the trembling breaths from escaping.

He needn't have worried about Bryce noticing. The boy's eyes widened in the way that made Michael desperate to know what caught his attention. The suspense was unbearable as he studied his son's face for a clue. Then he felt a little hand on his.

The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, revealing his inked skin. Michael felt a rush panic, fearing that it scared his boy, and he tried to think of an explanation why he was marked like that, but his mind wouldn't cooperate.

He needn't have worried, of course.

"Wow!" Bryce gasped. "They really do go all the way down to your wrists, just like mom said!"

There it was again. Mom.

Then, with astuteness and speed that made Michael skip a breath, the boy's eyes focused on the writing on Michael's left ring finger, a tattoo he had gotten just a year before. He turned dad's hand a bit to see the letters better.

"Be the change you…" Bryce started reading out loud, but then his lips shaped into a grin rather than form more words. He was so small, Michael thought, but he could already read fluently. It made him so proud that he had to fight again to stop the tears.

"…Wanna see in the world," Bryce finished the words of the tattoo without looking at it. He locked his eyes with Michael's again, and there was such awe in them, such joy, that it filled Michael with dread of a day his son might think he was no longer worthy of it.

"That's what mom always says," Bryce told him. "That, and that we should have a little faith. Which is funny, because of all the people I know, she is the most cyn…"

He frowned, searching for the rest of the syllables, but couldn't remember them. An abashed blush tinged his cheeks.

"Cynical?" Michael offered and sighed with relief when the boy's eyes went wide in wonder again, and he nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes!" Bryce exclaimed. He wanted to ask dad how he knew, but then realized that he was his dad. Of course he would know that.

But there was something he needed to know.

He bowed his head down again and tilted it slightly to the left as he studied dad's newest tattoo. It was on the special finger, the one on which people put rings as a promise to love each other forever. Mom sometimes put a big ring on it so that people would know he had a dad.

"So I don't have a stepmother?" he asked, trying to sound casual, but Michael felt his eyes burning on the tattoo.

"No. You don't have a stepmother," Michael smiled and was absolutely sure that no one had ever been so happy to hear they didn't have something, let alone be able to say it.

Bryce tried not to show it, of course, for he was a very polite boy. He tried very hard and succeeded in not throwing himself back into dad's arms that felt just as good as mom's.

"Good," he said instead resolutely. It might have only been early morning, but it was indisputable that today was the best day of his life.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone,
> 
> sorry this took so long! I hope y'all haven't stopped reading already :)
> 
> And I'm so sorry for the length again! I am clearly out of control. The chapter is in numerous sections, so just read as much as you feel like it at once. It may be for the best to not just devour it in one go ;)
> 
> As always, if you have any questions, etc, you can reach out either here or on tumblr (same username).
> 
> Thanks for reading and all your encouragement! It means the world!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this and please please review!
> 
> much love, winter.
> 
> PS: sorry for any mistakes!

They didn't see her watching them.

Sara had been looking for Bryce (an escape artist, just like his father, she couldn't help but smirk as she was passing through corridors), and as she came from around the corner, there they were, right by the elevators. Doors were opening and closing around them and people were walking past them, but neither noticed any of that in the moment the two of them finally, finally shared. There was a row of chairs free to occupy just a few feet away, but they remained glued to the spot that had first brought them into each other's arms.

Michael was on his knees, one of his hands placed on Bryce's upper arm, the other in Bryce's tiny hand. Their son's mouth was moving rapidly, and even though she was too far away to hear, he must have been comparing their wristwatches. The expression on Michael's face was so serene that as much as she wanted to walk up to them, she didn't dare to dispel it. He knew about Bryce for mere minutes, but there was already such gentleness in his mien that she couldn't believe the pile of broken dishes after she had seen him for the first time in six years. And love that emitted from him was so clear and unquestionable despite the distance between them, and it shamed her to remember the spite she had felt for him, however fleetingly.

It wasn't fair, it suddenly struck her, that he had learned without her words. Back in Costa Rica, she had wondered whether he'd notice the curve underneath her t-shirt right away. She imagined his eyes crashing with hers in wild disbelief before he'd pull her into an embrace just a little bit looser than in Gila, for it wouldn't be just the two of them anymore. Or should he miss the greeting of the little one, she pictured them taking in the colors of the sunset and how she would add another one by placing his hand on her belly. Even after being told there would never be the three of them, she had refused to let go of the reverie.

But perhaps there was no better way for Michael to find out. It was the way they had always done things; they were willing to die for each other before they were properly in love and then followed it without rearview mirrors. They had their life planned out before they even properly kissed and their every separation left devastation in its wake. Everything had always been fast, aside from the love they made, and unexpected, nothing more than the boy Michael now held in his arms.

It was so easy to let herself hope that maybe she would get to tell him about a life, another life that they would have created in their madness. But now that they were in the same building once more, the man in front of her was nothing more than a father of her child. For all she knew, he might have tucked in a little girl last night, and someone may have kissed him goodbye this morning before he left to face a fragment of a life he had already recovered from. It had been transient and so long ago, and unlike her, he hadn't had anything to remember her by, not even a photograph taken just for him. Of course she would fade in his mind as the months idly passed by until it had been over half a decade.

Bryce was the first to notice her.

"Mom, dad's tattoos really go all the way to his wrists!" he exclaimed, and she blinked away everything but a couple of tears. She turned her eyes to the walls, so beautiful in their plainness, just as Michael's eyes finally found hers. The two paths crossed, for a moment so fittingly fleeting that her face erupted in a smile, because it was as if despite the brutality of time, nothing had changed.

"I told you they do," she said, fighting her eyes to no avail. She saw that he didn't rise. He kept his hand on Bryce's shoulder, as though to steady himself. As if he couldn't move, and god, she couldn't, either. Not closer, at least.

"I, um, I'm gonna get our things," she somehow managed to say under his eyes. Turning on her heels, she walked down the corridor and then another. Maybe her feet knew when she was headed, but her mind didn't. After more than six years, the sobs finally weren't what convulsed her body, and her hands reached for her temples to remind her that this was real.

Abigail nearly crashed into her. Her cheeks were flushed, and there were Sara's purse and Bryce's backpack in her hands.

"Where's Bryce? I've been looking all over for him. Michael's…" she started, then cursing upon seeing Sara's face. But the reunion was one of those plans that would be joyous even in their derailment, thus laughter overtook her as well.

"I am so happy for the three of you," she effused, and when Sara's mind was capable of producing a coherent thought again, they headed back toward the elevators. Michael was now standing, just as tall as she remembered him from the days she had stealthily watched him waiting in front of her infirmary.

There were so many things she wanted to tell him that she didn't know where to start and she wanted to throw her arms around him but didn't know whether it was still a prerogative of hers. So she stood there, in the safe vicinity of the agent, who was saying something, but she didn't discern a word. This should be easier, she thought, and hated herself for making it harder. There was Bryce, wise beyond his years, so childish in his happiness. He held dad's hand so confidently, as if it wasn't their first time meeting, as if they hadn't lost six years.

I won't be that woman, Michael.

If there was a ring, Bryce knew about it by now. She wanted to know just as badly as she didn't. She had never asked Abigail about it, even though the agent would definitely know. Back in Paris, it had been simple to convince herself that it didn't really matter; she had just wanted her boy to meet his dad.

Now she wished she knew for sure. Then maybe she could look at him, for she knew his eyes were pleading her to turn to him. But her hands fumbled with the handle of the purse that kept slipping off her shoulder despite and because of her inattentive attention.

"Well, I guess that's all for today," Abigail said, her eyes alternating between the three of them. No one could ever guess that she glanced around for Lincoln, but of course he was nowhere to be seen. She couldn't believe she expected anything else. When had that man done anything she had asked of him? Absolutely unbelievable, his stubbornness.

Her eyes then focused on Sara, who was more than happy for an excuse to evade Michael's unwavering stare.

"I will have to talk to you in a bit more detail, though. But it can wait a few days," she smiled reassuringly before biting her lip, unsure of how to phrase the imminent question. "Where, um, can I reach you?"

"They are staying with me," Michael answered instead of her so resolutely that Sara would believe there was no one if he was any other man; but he was Michael Scofield. Of course he would let them stay in his home, even if someone else lay in the bed she had belonged to that one night and Bryce met a new set of siblings at dinner, the ones that unlike Selena shared part of his blood.

"I don't want to impose…"

"Stay with me," he said, and the plea that nuanced his tone left her defenseless. Wait for me. Make a mistake. Forget to lock up. Leave the door open. Every request he had made to her pulled her to the rock bottom, was the death of her and her new beginning. All these lessons marked her skin, yet saying no was never on the tip of her tongue.

Bryce let go of his father's hand and stepped to the agent.

"Thank you, Agent Abigail," he said, and then, when she squatted and hugged him, whispered, so that his parents wouldn't hear, "You were right about dad."

"I told you," she winked at him. "Now make sure he buys you ice cream."

***

By the time his phone rang again, Lincoln had been on the road for over twenty-four hours, drunk more coffees than he could count, and was yet to see the fucking storm.

That's what Laeticia, a lady at the airport counter, told him (Lincoln didn't know this, of course, but it was supposed to be her day off. At six o'clock, one of her coworkers had phoned and implored her to cover her morning shift. So Laeticia sprayed a bottle of cheap perfume all over herself to cover the fact that last night she had opted for catching up on her favorite soap rather than showering. The absolutely last thing she wanted this morning was dealing with a belligerent man in an Aloha shirt with pineapples).

No flights to New York until further notice. Big storm coming.

"Okay, it doesn't need to be New York," Lincoln said. "What about, I don't know, Texas? California?"

"All to north, canceled."

Then he got a brilliant idea.

"What about Argentina? Brazil?" he asked, but Laeticia's fingers didn't start moving across the keyboard and her eyes indicated that they wouldn't spring into action anytime soon either. "I guess I can't get to New York from there either, huh?"

But Lincoln had spent more than enough time on that thin line between what was legal and what would get you thrown in jail to know that there were always people who asked only for a reasonable price.

And Lincoln was a millionaire.

He walked to the back of the airport and found a guy who had his own plane and offered flights. He told him he needed to get to America and was willing to pay double. The man, leaning on the side of his plane and with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, just pointed to the sky and shook his head.

"Look, man, I give you half a million, okay? You can take my house. Just get me to America."

"What am I gonna do with a house if I'm dead?" the guy barked.

Clearly the world wasn't the immoral place he had always considered it to be, so Lincoln did the only reasonable thing. He got behind the wheel of his 1972 Vista Cruiser and started driving. The first six hours, his wrath was keeping him going. Then there was coffee. He cursed when some acned motherfucker overtook him just miles into Costa Rica and he had to brake and half of the steaming coffee poured down his shirt. Lincoln would speed after the kid and beat the crap out of him, but he was already pushing the cruiser's limit.

He didn't stop cursing for an hour because it fucking burned and there was no way in hell he was stopping for some ice and all the windows were rolled down and the sky was clear blue without a single fucking cloud in sight. The pineapples on his shirt looked rotten, and he reached behind his seat to search for an extra shirt, but all he found was his cigarette stash for emergencies from back when he had still smoked.

As the night fell, he picked up his phone to call Abigail and tell her it might take a while for him to get to New York. Maybe it was just his weariness, but he definitely wouldn't be above begging for her to get him home, somehow. He never got around to actually calling her, of course, for he figured she'd think the impending storms were just a lame excuse, and looking through the window and seeing all the stars, he couldn't blame her.

In the morning, the cruiser was still going strong. He had to stop to cool off the engine about every two hours and he barely broke thirty miles per hour and people were sounding their horns, but he was still going. Then all of a sudden, he wasn't anymore.

It was somewhere in western Nicaragua. Or maybe he was already in Honduras, what the fuck did he know. All the roads had started to look the same to him and there was always the ocean to his left and the smell of bananas didn't leave the air and the asphalt was still dry. For all he knew, he might as well just be driving in circles.

A flock of sheep blocked the road and he hadn't moved for fifteen minutes, despite his yelling (the horn of his cruiser was broken). All the sheep did was bleat in response, with one ram in particular being very vocal.

He didn't look at the name of the caller when his phone rang. Of course he knew it was Abigail and the last thing he wanted was to hear her asking him where he was in that voice whose sweetness was most deafening cursing he could ever imagine. But somehow that stupid ringing managed to be louder than that stupid ram, and it prompted him to pick up the phone anyway.

Michael.

Lincoln hit the wheel with his fist. If his brother was calling him, then Sara had to be in New York already. As happy as he was for Michael, he knew Abigail was fucking pissed at him. What had he been thinking, not letting her know about the fucking storm? Seriously, the amount of time he spent thinking about her these days would be alarming if he didn't find it surprisingly soothing.

"Hey, man," were his first words to his brother after over a year.

"What are you doing?" Michael said, his voice pensive in that way of his that Lincoln knew and missed hearing so much.

Coming home. I'm sorry I'm not there yet. I'm sorry I have left in the first place.

But he couldn't say that, of course.

"Just chillin'," he said instead. The last lie, he promised himself. Damn it, from now on, he was going to be the best brother – or at least as good of a brother as he could make himself be. They were given a second chance – again. He had learned his lesson the last time around. He chose to have learned his lesson, right there, with the ram baaing him into reason. "It's um, semi-final day. So I'm hosting a barbeque. With beer and all."

"I need to tell you something," Michael said, once again completely disregarding his reply. The tone he used would never make Lincoln guess his brother was having the best day of his life. But that was his little brother. The fancier the suit, the cooler the voice, the more he was overwhelmed. It must have been a control thing, Lincoln decided. Why else would anyone choose a suit as their attire while on the run? It still cracked him up to this day, just thinking about it.

"What's up, man?"

"Linc… Sara's alive. She's here," he let out in a quiet, overwhelmed voice that would make Lincoln ask for a repetition if, of course, he hadn't known before Michael already.

I know, man, I know. I'm on my way. I'm sorry I was giving you hard time, man. I didn't know. I just wanted you to be okay.

"What?" he resorted to what his usual response was in any situation that involved emotions. He had more than enough practice but still didn't think he sounded at all convincing.

But Michael didn't repeat his words. In fact, Lincoln doubted he had even heard him. He continued gushing, and Lincoln struggled to follow the mumble but figured he knew most of what he was saying anyway. Until a certain word, a completely absurd, impossible word, crept in there, not once and definitely more than twice.

"Wait – you have a what?"

"A son. Lincoln, I have a little boy. Bryce. He's incredible, Linc. He's so smart. He can read …"

Holy fuck.

He turned the key in the ignition.

"I'm on my way, Michael. I'm coming."

"Linc…"

"Go be with them," Lincoln said, like a big brother should. "I'll be there soon."

He hung up and put the car in reverse. Then he remembered that he had no idea where exactly he was and he couldn't recall how far back the road had last split in two. The only thing he knew was that going forward meant reaching home, and he was done putting miles between his home and himself.

Fuck ketchup, he thought as he looked for spots of black asphalt among the puffy white in front of him. The one thing he missed most about America was that there were no fucking sheep clogging the road.

So he got out of his car and took a deep, resolute breath. Then he shut the door and headed toward the sheep, because he was Linc the Sink, for fuck's sake.

***

Of all places Bryce had read about in his books, he wanted to go to Central Park the most. As they were walking to Michael's car and his tiny hand was safely in his dad's, he effused about all he had read: the carousel from the book that was on Selena's reading list, a little castle ("Its name means beautiful in Italian," Bryce incidentally said just as Michael looked over to Sara, and god, she was beautiful), the zoo and the penguins, paths with statues of more people from Selena's reading list, open-air theaters.

But as they reached dad's car, Bryce bit his lower lip and his steps froze.

"What is it, baby?" Sara asked him, but he only stared at her in response, as though expecting her to know. She should have known, clearly, for mothers were supposed to know these things, but for the first time in years the sun on her skin didn't remind of Costa Rica and she couldn't decide whether to feel euphoric or timorous.

"I can't get in, mom," Bryce finally relented, keeping his voice quiet as though he didn't want his dad to hear him. But Michael heard everything, standing between them. "I need a kid seat. It says so in the book. Kids under eight need a booster seat."

I don't want us to get in trouble, he added, but Sara knew whom he meant. The beads of sweat that appeared above her lip weren't a result of the sun. She had never needed to know things about booster seats in France, as they always took the bus, but she would never admit it aloud; not today and especially not with Michael standing so close to her that she could wrap her arms around him without fully extending any of her muscles. He seemed to be getting closer to her with each corridor they had passed and every step down the staircase, even though she kept her feet in a straight line without any deviations. It unnerved her, just as much as it made her belly burn.

"Then we're gonna get you a booster seat," Michael casually said, and just like his son, he too only meant one person with his words. She had totally not thought this thing through, she berated herself. All her plans had ended with them entering the embassy in Paris. She hadn't expected anything but the switch of the sides they had occupied back in Fox River. But somehow all the charges that had awaited her disappeared and there was no barbed fence to dictate their actions. She hadn't brought any money with her, let alone clothes. What would she have done had Michael not come? It had never crossed her mind that he wouldn't, and she hated herself for loving him even when everything was against him.

In the store, Michael headed straight for the booster seat with the most exemplary safety features, without any regard to the price tag. Bryce knew big numbers like that one and looked up at her questionably. She just shook her head, praying Michael hadn't noticed. It wasn't just the freedom and the freshness of parks that they liked; unlike cinemas or most museums, parks didn't ask for an admission fee.

She knew she should pull him aside, tell him that she couldn't scoop up enough change to get their kid an ice cream cone, but that would require touching him, and she didn't want her first words to him be an admission of her shortcomings. Maybe he sensed her hesitation, or was simply the better parent so effortlessly; as Bryce was picking the strawberries for their picnic in the park, determined to find the perfect ones, Michael called her name. If it was anyone else, his voice would meld in the ocean of people passing by them, pushing shopping carts and deciding aloud what they were going to buy, but that voice was meant only for her. The way he pronounced her name, even in the early days of Fox River when both had still been firmly on their side of the fence, it was as if he was addressing someone else, not a governor's daughter with faded syringe marks all over her arms. It never failed to make her wish she would never hear herself treated in any other way again.

Just like all those inappropriate times before, she couldn't stop herself from looking at him. His forehead was furrowed and a wallet was in his hands. He was staring at it, and she followed suit before his eyes could level with hers.

"Sara, buy something for you and Bryce. Whatever and as much as you need," he said, holding out a credit card with his name splashed across it. It didn't escape her alert eyes how his fingers only held the edge of the card, as if eliminating any possibility of an accidental contact between the two of them. Yet at the same time, she realized, offering her a touch should she want one. He sighed when the distance between them remained unbroken.

"We'll get the food," he said, and his eyes glanced upward, yet never quite settling on hers. She had told him once that she was a careful woman; was he wondering if during their years apart she had learned to be careful around him as well? Or was it that there was someone she needed to know about, and he couldn't find the right words? It must have been intentional, the way the part of him with the answer was always out of her eyes' reach. What's her name, she barely stopped herself from asking.

Once they had spread a picnic blanket near one of the ponds in Central Park and there was so much food around them as if they were throwing a feast, somehow everything was better. Maybe it was just the mere fact that they were in a park, where the calming green, so unlike the desert of Gila, was wherever she looked and the swaying branches above them drowned the fear of car chases. Never before was the feeling of being in the right place, at the right time, as profound as when she watched Bryce fill his plastic bowl with slices of the banana, kiwi, strawberries, blueberries and all other berries he had chosen together with dad. He topped it with cream and a full fist of colorful sprinkles. He laughed as he crunched them with his teeth. Her heart swelled as his father smiled at him.

This was how it was supposed to be. Glancing around, there were other families, just like them. A mom, with her hair down or in a loose bun, a dad, out of his work clothes, a kid – or kids, with sugar between their teeth and endless summer in front of them. It was deceptively easy to forget that they could have had all of this years ago already had she only looked him up. At that moment, it was just the three of them.

Even their voices sounded alike, it dawned on her out of nowhere as Bryce pulled one of the books about New York out of his little backpack and opened it in the middle, where the big map was. He located the Central Park with ease she knew Michael would want to discuss, then asked dad where his apartment was. He marked the spot with a little cross, and it was just one Bryce's fingertip away.

When his second bowl was emptied, Bryce started telling his dad about himself. Michael's eyes didn't spend a syllable off his face and she knew that he was making a list of things he would ask her to explain. Like, the way Bryce kept referring to Selena as his sister. Neighbor's daughter, she quickly provided, hating the idea of Michael getting the wrong idea. Then there were the school assignments and the smiling faces his teacher had been drawing on them throughout the year. The kid he was helping with French. When Bryce started talking about a dog Thibaut had gotten, she knew she should intervene and change the topic before Michael could resolve to get him a dog tomorrow.

It was pleasant enough to take off her jacket and it was beatific enough for her to forget about the scar on her upper arm. She rolled the jacket into a ball and put it under her head as a pillow, never once remembering that there was a pink line Michael had no memory of. She had it for so long and it had come to represent everything but pain that it completely slipped her mind that it may take Michael back to that parking lot in Gila, the last thing he had known about her until this morning.

The moment he laid his fingers there, light as to not cause her pain but too perfectly placed not to be a question, she knew that the panic rippled through him. She felt his eyes once again scanning the available skin, just to make sure there wasn't something else he had missed. She knew better than to think not finding any more would bring him relief. By now, his mind was probably raucous, imagining what they might have done to her, and where.

After her eyes remained shut and her tongue was still figuring out what to say, his fingertips began following the scar. Bryce's voice became a tiniest bit quieter, for he surely noticed that dad was touching mom the way that made her wince sometimes. But it didn't hurt today; not the way and where he thought, at least.

She turned her head, first looking at his fingers, careful like they had always been with her, then chancing a glance at him.

"I'm okay," she said, but his expression remained pained. He lifted his fingers off her skin, held them in the air still close enough she could feel them. As her eyes begged him to look at her, his remained on the scar, doubtlessly maddening him.

"Dad, can I ask you something?" Bryce said, and it tore Michael's eyes off the past they would have to dig up before moving on, again.

"Anything."

Bryce pulled his backpack closer and opened one of its side pockets. Sara sat up and was to put the jacket back on, to at least get the scar out of their visual fields, for she knew that behind his placid expression, Michael's mind was bedeviled with possibilities.

"Can you fix them?" he said, and the jacket remained on the blanket, because when the boy offered Michael his hand, there was the origami on his small palm – both the crane and the rose, the latter slightly flattened from age and travel. Sara gasped, wondering how she could have forgotten to take them.

Michael didn't respond right away, and she knew it was because he recognized them immediately. His head tilted slightly to the right, toward her, and his lips parted, as if he had to remind himself to inhale.

"You kept them," he finally said, and she barely heard him, but knew the words were for her. So she moved closer to him, close enough to lean her head on his shoulder. She could swear that neither of them breathed as Bryce crawled onto her lap to watch his father's unusually trembling fingers do away with the first crease that stifled their future.

"Of course I kept them," she whispered.

***

Time had settled into the afternoon already, but Michael still waited for the feeling that had been his staunchest companion for six years and would, or so he thought, peak today.

Just for today, no, he pleaded with his own mind as he held his little boy. Just give me today, he begged as the woman he had vowed himself to sat close enough for his body to shook in unison with hers when she laughed.

And somehow, the guilt never showed up.

He'd be the first to say it should, perhaps with greater force than before. He had abjured the idea of ever having kids, for they would feel like a substitution of a life he hadn't been destined to have. And all along, there was a little boy with his eyes and a heart of his mother. It was a miracle Bryce kept taking his hand, even though he hadn't been there to hold his son's when terrors of the night woke him up. He had been a mystery, just as Aldo had, yet Bryce had no hatred for him on his tongue and apparently couldn't get tired of being encompassed in his arms. As much as he wanted to apologize for not being there for his first walk to school, it seemed like Bryce didn't need to hear it.

This, carefree days under the sun, endless roaming with ice cream cones in their hands, babies, this is what he had promised Sara with those three words in Gila. Somehow he had given her everything but himself, but it could not fool him. He had helped Lisa with LJ during Lincoln's innumerable prison stints and he knew there were days, weeks that Sara had spent hating him for not being there, with her. She had thought he had died, he knew that, but it didn't alleviate his worries. Would she think he hadn't been looking for her? Would she say that he should have seen through the deception, for he was Michael Scofield? He wanted to tell her that from now on, he would be there, every day, give her everything he had and all she wanted from and of him. But every time he was to say it, the air vanished from his lungs and all he could do was look at her. Her hair was longer and darker and she was a bit too thin, but otherwise, she was just as he remembered her.

When she thought his eyes were elsewhere, she freed that smile that had made him so arrogantly, so serenely sure that everything would be perfect. It had been six years since she had given him the privilege of that smile, and he hoped that their boy wasn't the only reason their reunion exhilarated her. Did she have someone whose touch she would choose over his? He reprimanded himself for wishing she had spent the past six years alone, yet his absence of a ring on her left hand made him wild with hope that one day, they would be lost in each other again.

He should have been there, Michael forced a reminder on himself, but his mind, the part of him he always relied on, bar the times it was at its most reasonable, was adamant. It had been out of his hands. No file he had access to, no records he could analyze, no people that still breathed could lead him to them. It would be so easy to feel mad, having been dealt worthless cards, but it was so much simpler to be in raptures, at least today.

***

It was way, way too late by the time they finally made it to Michael's place. Bryce had wanted to stay in the park until the night descended so that they could count the stars together, and he showed Sara both his and dad's watch to prove it was still early, only past seven. But it was way past his usual bedtime in Lille, and for that matter, hers, but neither could tell while on sly sugar and blinding bliss.

They got into the elevator, and there were more numbered buttons than most of Bryce's peers could count. Not Bryce, though. He asked dad which button he should press and he had to get on his toes to reach it, as it was one of the top ones.

"How long till we get there?" was his next question, and when dad said 23 seconds, Bryce counted the moves of his wristwatch's hands. Thus he didn't see how, once the elevator door closed, his parents' eyes locked in the mirror in front of them.

The three of them, Sara thought. Maybe it was weariness or a simple surrender to elation, but she let her mouth spread in a smile whose width had become obsolete. She might feel its ache if it wasn't for Michael's expression mirroring hers. He was sharing her thoughts in his revealing eyes, not hiding them behind his sunglasses like that time on the Buttercup Road, when the idea of the two of them was out of place just as much as the three of them were now perfect. He hadn't called anyone and made no mention of anyone. Maybe, Sara thought, maybe it was just the three of them.

Please don't be in love with someone else.

The moment she had learned about the avenue where Michael's place was, she knew it would enormous. Yet when he unlocked the door, saying welcome home and letting them in, her jaw dropped. The entryway was practically larger than their place in Lille and the coat closet would easily hold their entire wardrobe.

Bryce ran straight down the hall, with his shoes that had trod on two continents still on.

"Hey, take off your shoes, baby," she screamed after him just before a breath caught in her throat. Michael stood right behind her, his hands lightly on her shoulders. Bryce rushed back in, holding his shoes and putting them down, then rushed to continue his exploration without noticing one of the sneakers was on its side. Sara felt her jacket sliding off her relaxed arms.

"And no running!" she added.

"Let him run," Michael laughed.

Their boy's steps became distant enough for him not to hear them and it dawned on her that this was the first time they were alone. Michael must have been waiting for this moment, as there it was again, her name, intoned with the promise of brutal honesty.

"So we are actually free?" she hurried before he could continue. She crossed her arms across her chest, and damn it, there was the scar. She could hide it in the dim light of Lille, but now Michael's forehead wrinkled in that way she hated again. She could barely handle his presence, let alone the revival of what had separated them. "No one will come after us with guns and try to put us away?"

The expression he wore was unreadable. He turned his back to her, vigilant of the mirror on the wall, and slowly hung her jacket in the closet.

"I know I told you this once before, Sara," he said, smoothing out the creases of her jacket, "but no one will ever hurt you again. You, or Bryce. This time, it is really over."

I'm sorry it took this long. She knew he would add that if Bryce didn't call out for her from somewhere inside the apartment. They found him in the kitchen, completely ecstatic because dad had a microwave.

"Okay, let's not pretend we haven't seen a microwave before," she told him, hoping Michael wouldn't add this to the growing list of things he would ask her about later. But once Bryce found a dishwasher, she knew Michael was getting a pretty good idea of how their life in France looked like.

Glancing around the kitchen, the hallways, the living room, she caught herself looking for something a woman may place there. It was ridiculous, for she had no idea what that may be, and it shamed her, for it felt like spying. She felt his increasingly incessant eyes on her, perfectly aware of what she sought, and of course it made her eyeballs more frantic. If there was nothing to find, she didn't want to come across as desperate, and if she was once again the other woman, she didn't want to appear entitled.

Please don't be in love with someone else.

They caught up with their son in the living room. He stood in front of the magnificent floor-to-ceiling windows, enthralled by the city around him. There was Central Park; he could easily make out the ponds. The streets below them buzzed with people walking home, going out, and the sprawling skyscrapers formed the skyline, with millions of windows and thousands of families just like theirs.

Michael walked past Sara and squatted next to the boy.

"Wow," he managed, his eyes dashing from left to right, trying to take it all in.

"Wait till you see it at night," Michael smiled, and Bryce turned his head to look at him. He searched for something on his father's face but offered no clues as to what exactly.

"That's tomorrow, right?" he finally said, but didn't argue. He proceeded with informing Sara that there were one big bedroom and three smaller ones. The emphasis on the latter part was glaring enough for a blush to take over her cheeks.

"You can choose whichever you want," Michael told him.

"And one's for Uncle Lincoln when he gets here," Bryce said, and the existence of the third room and its possible, likely use lingered unspoken. It was insane, Sara thought, not daring to dart a glance in Michael's direction should it uncover that knowing smirk of his.

Bryce took his brand new pajama out of one of the shopping bags and ran toward the bathroom with confident steps of someone who had spent more than half an hour in this place. There was a question on Michael's lips, and she knew he wasn't certain whether it was something he should need to ask.

"Oh, he's fine," she said. "He's started bathing himself a few months ago."

"Sara, there's another bathroom if you…"

"That'd be great," she nodded and followed him down the hall. It didn't seem like her accepting his request disappointed him. His steps slowed down so that they were now walking side by side, still too far apart for their hands to accidentally brush against each other, yet so close his smile lulled her into smiling as well. The walls they passed were all blank, brimming with possibilities. There might soon be a framed photograph of them in a park, smiling into the camera like it was what they had always done as a family. A father and son, with Lego bricks in their hands, putting on display what had never been absent. A holiday somewhere at the seaside once they got used to each other's scars. Birthday cakes with candles marking the years spent together. Christmas trees reminding them of how their apartment would smell of cinnamon for weeks. Maybe even pictures of a dog, she chuckled to herself

Michael kept stealing glances at her, without much attempt to conceal them. So fleeting they were that they may be unintentional and so intense it must have been a struggle to tear away. Maybe, she thought, he did it for the same reason her eyes had been so intent on avoiding him the whole day. Perhaps neither of them could believe what their senses were so unmistakably stating.

They almost walked past the bathroom in their rapture. His arm intercepted her next step, and after the brief contact with her body, he slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers, as though he didn't trust them unconfined. As though he wanted them on her as much as she did but was unsure, just like she had been, the whole day.

Sara held her breath as her hand reached out for him. Please don't be in love with someone else, her mind supplicated when a flicker of his eyelids revealed he was aware of her intention.

The fear that he may move away after all stilled her just before her hand could embrace his cheek. But Michael didn't leave her in abeyance for more than a couple of seconds. He closed his eyes and a sigh escaped his parted lips. He leaned into her touch, and as one of his hands covered hers to press it yet closer to him, the sight of this man who had taken everything away from her so devastatingly and kept giving her everything in return almost overwhelmed her knees. Her breathing matched his ragged one so swimmingly that she could almost believe they had been one every day of their separation

"I didn't leave you in Gila," she whispered.

"I know; I've always known," he said softly, his eyes still shut with force that left a wrinkle between his eyes. His other hand started caressing her forearm; only with the palm, though, as if the feel of her underneath his fingertips was a claim he didn't dare make. "I found the bag in the parking lot."

A disappointed sigh left her mouth without her approval when he suddenly let go of her. She was about to turn and walk into the bathroom, hoping that ridding herself of the stains of all the places that had separated them would pacify her mind somewhat. But then there was the interruption again, so unforeseen it could only be the work of Michael Scofield. He cupped her face, and his hands and eyes, so gentle yet desperate, so light and urging, begged for her attention, and it was so much she would cry if there was the slightest of caresses.

"I tried to find you, Sara," he said. "I looked for you. And even after…"

"I know," she hurried to reassure him before his mind could take him back there.

"I did everything I could think of. I'm sorry I couldn't get to you. I need you to know that I would have never abandoned you and Bryce. If I had known, Sara, I would be there, with you, every day."

"I know. And he knows it, too," she smiled.

Of course she had seen him smile before, but those smiles with the bars looming around them and peril waiting for them on the other side of the window were smiles of a man who chose to lock away the world. It wasn't that they hadn't been real; it was just that they had been smiles tied indelibly to a specific time and place. They had never lingered after he had exited the infirmary and they had been a weakness once the sun broke through the thin curtains.

This man in front of her now was smiling because of the world, because of tomorrow and every day after that and what they would bring.

"He's amazing, Sara."

"He's just like you."

Michael seemed to have realized he still held her in his hands. Once the words he had been keeping in all day were finally freed, he found the feel of her overwhelming. He moved his hands, but couldn't quite bring himself to let go of her completely.

His fingers touched the ends of her hair.

"Yeah, well," she chuckled, "it's been six years, and I'm still not used to it."

Whatever he may think of the new color, he didn't tell her.

"Go get ready. We have a story to read to our boy," he smiled.

***

Of the three smaller rooms, Bryce opted for the middle one. He didn't say it out loud, of course, but Sara knew he figured there might be someone, someday, preferably soon, who would need to be closer to their parents than him.

Michael was lying on the right side of the bed, with their son cuddled up to him and a tablet on his lap.

"I don't have any children's books," he said almost apologetically. "So we looked one up online."

"Dad says we'll buy a lot of books tomorrow," Bryce added. Then he informed her that dad also said they would get him a desk for his room and as many bookshelves as he wanted. As excited as he was discussing the very first room that was to be just his, Sara knew the prospect terrified him. Not one night until now had they spent in separate rooms, without the either in sight in case they woke in darkness. But he would never let it show, especially not to his dad and so soon after meeting him. The way he buoyed himself up, she thought, maybe that way he was a bit like her.

"Well, thank god your dad's gonna be here with us tonight just in case any monsters show up," she remarked, getting in the bed and pulling the covers to her chin.

"Mom! There is no such thing as monsters!" Bryce muttered, outraged that she dared to insinuate he might believe there were. Yet, just as she knew he would, he then turned to dad and asked, "But will you stay here tonight anyway?"

And Sara would be lying if she claimed she expected Michael to say anything but yes.

**

About ten minutes later, when they were done with the first chapter, Bryce remarked that he was pretty sure what was going to happen and turned to mom to ask her what she thought.

She was already asleep.

"Don't wake her," his dad whispered to him. Bryce was about to tell him that he wasn't planning on doing that, but then realized there was something he had forgotten to tell his mom this evening.

But he could still say it to his father.

"I love you, dad," he said, then quickly looked at dad, just to make sure it wasn't the wrong thing to say.

It didn't seem to be. Dad smiled softly before his head tilted to the left and his lips curled inwards.

"I love you, too," he said.


	12. The Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all,
> 
> thank you for reading and for all your wonderful reviews and I'm sorry it took much longer than usual for me to update. Unfortunately, we had some problems in the family that took quite a toll on me and I'd say on my writing as well. I wouldn't call this chapter special in any way and I will be the first to say that it could be better. It is about their first morning as the family. It raises a few questions that will be addressed in the following chapters. The next one will (finally) focus on Sara and Michael; however, I have an exam at the end of the month and I will start preparing for it now, so it will probably be a few weeks before the next update. I'm sorry!
> 
> I hope you'll find something to like in this chapter :)
> 
> please review.

Bryce didn't need to open his eyes to know that there was something different about this morning. The pillow wasn't as soft and the covers smelled differently. He wondered if perhaps he had fallen asleep at Aunt Moni's, but she was always out of the nice-smelling fabric softener, and then there was a hand stroking his hair and it was as light as if yesterday was only a dream.

Opening his eyes to make sure it had really happened, he found dad's smiling face just inches from his. He must have fallen asleep while they were reading the story, for he couldn't remember how it ended and was still cuddled up to dad, his head resting on dad's chest.

Dad put a finger to his lips and glanced over Bryce's shoulder. The boy turned his head, and there was mom, still sleeping, her hair draped across the white sheets that covered her all the way to her chin. The night had taken away the dark circles under her eyes and kept the serenity on her lips. He was about to remark how happy she appeared, but dad's eyes were still on her and Bryce didn't want to interrupt.

There was something special in the way dad looked at mom, right from the moment they had first seen each other yesterday. He effortlessly found her wherever they were, just for the sake of knowing she was there and without intent to speak to her. It didn't matter if there was a crowd around them and the chatter encompassed them, something Bryce knew dad's brain could not brush aside; it was as if the world pared down to just the two of them and yet dad still couldn't quite believe she was not a mirage. It was completely unlike Thibaut's parents. Thibaut's dad only spoke to Thibaut's mom when he couldn't hear the person on the phone while she was watching her series, and while Thibaut ignored the tone used, Bryce knew it was not a nice one. He couldn't imagine his dad ever being like that to mom, especially when he placed his hand next to hers without her knowing. It seemed like he didn't care if she took it or not; he cherished the sheer proximity of her. Thibaut's dad couldn't get out of their house fast enough, especially on Saturday mornings.

"Morning," dad whispered, kissing the top of his head. Bryce giggled into the sheets, careful not to wake mom. Of course it usually took much more to wake her in the mornings, but so many strange, wonderful things he had deemed impossible were happening that that too could easily change.

"Do you have to go to work today?" he asked. His tiny fists grabbed the sheets covering him, not wanting to let go of them in case he'd need to pull them over their heads to keep in their perfect morning.

"No," dad said, ruffling his hair. "We'll be together all day."

Bryce repositioned himself so that he was now looking directly at dad. He knew that his elbow must have hurt dad's stomach a little bit and the apology was already on his tongue, it didn't seem like dad minded at all. He was still smiling, his lips curled inward, and his fingers were intertwined on Bryce's back as if to ensure the boy's full weight was pressed against him.

"Are you hungry?"

"That's a very dad thing to say," Bryce said, convinced that it was something dad would love to hear. And he wasn't wrong; dad laughed, as if he had forgotten mom was still asleep.

He then scooped him up and Bryce wrapped his hands around his neck. Of course he already knew that his dad was the best dad in the whole world and mom had said that he was quick on his feet, but Bryce gained a whole new respect for him when they exited the bedroom with no sound whatsoever. He thought he dad would carry him all the way to the kitchen, but his bare feet were on the spotless parquet as soon as the door behind them was left ajar.

Mom would never let him run to the kitchen, and when dad didn't immediately follow, he thought he too would say something. But when he looked over his shoulder to check, dad didn't seem to mind the sound of his steps. Maybe he didn't even notice; his eyes were closed and his right hand was across his heart. And he was smiling in that distinct way Bryce couldn't quite figure out. Unlike with all other people he knew, the smile was not splashed across dad's face; only the corners of his mouth were furled upward as he kept his lips together. Yet somehow, dad looked incredibly happy. Bryce wondered if perhaps he didn't want to reveal his bliss to the world in case someone might want to steal it away.

"What do you usually have for breakfast?" dad asked him once they were in the kitchen. He had picked him up again and sat him on the counter, knowing without being told that Bryce liked sitting there the most. His legs dangling in the air, he told dad about cereal, but dad didn't have any. The promised to buy some today, but there really was no need, for there was enough food in the fridge to last them for a week. Dad offered to make eggs in pretty much every way they made them on the TV cooking competitions, but eggs were the boring kind of breakfast, and then there was flour on the counter for pancakes, buttermilk, bananas, blueberries, and a waffle maker also appeared out of nowhere.

"Well, let's just make a little bit of everything," dad finally decided after Bryce just stared at all the options. Two pans, both looking brand new, the fridge, whose top shelves Bryce couldn't reach even on toes, and all the talk last night about the books and the desk and everything else he might want in his room were suddenly reminiscent of the answers Thibaut had given him every time he asked about what it was like having a dad. Thibaut's dad never had time for breakfast in the morning and by the time he was done with work, it was too late for a bedtime story. Thibaut never seemed to mind, as he had all the latest video games and a television in his room. And dad would eventually have to go back to work, right?

"Dad, can I talk to you about something?" Bryce started as dad took a bowl out of the cupboard.

"You don't need to ask me that. You can talk to me about anything, anytime," he replied, putting five large spoons of flour into the bowl. Then he added definitely more sugar than mom would approve, and it seemed like he didn't even need to think about which ingredient came next. And he absolutely didn't weigh everything like Aunt Moni did.

"You know how you said we would go buy books today?"

"Any and as many as you want," dad nodded, whisking the mix three times before handing the bowl to Bryce. Mom had told him that dad was like a storm once, and while it hadn't made much sense then, now Bryce understood. Dad somehow just knew things; where to get the car seat, just how much flour was needed for waffles, and he did it all with sterling confidence that rendered it impossible for him to be mistaken.

"And a desk for my room and the bed linen I want?" the boy went on. His fingers didn't feel like part of his body anymore and it was like he had never held a whisk before. An abashed red spread across his cheeks, fearing dad might think just that.

"What's wrong?" dad softly asked, and his large hand covered Bryce's to steady it.

"Dad, I don't want you buying me things. I just want you to be with me and mom. Because Thibaut always says that the only time he sees his dad is when he buys him a new video game or something."

He didn't answer right away. His thumb ran circles across Bryce's hand, and as though it was a magic trick, each made Bryce feel sillier for having worried.

"Okay. Then we'll just get you what you need and what you really, really want," dad eventually said. His hand stilled the movements and his long fingers wrapped around Bryce's wrist, only to let go way too rapidly. Bryce quickly looked at his face, just to make sure dad hadn't changed his mind and was offended nonetheless. Dad's eyes were closed and his forehead furrowed. As good as he usually was at reading people's reactions, dad's left him in the dark. He was gathering the courage to ask if he had said something wrong when dad opened his eyes and spoke again. "Bryce, I wish I had been with you and your mom all along. I hope you know that."

Of course the boy never doubted that. But there was something no one had told him in the chaos of transatlantic flights, people in serious suits, and all the things he had not yet known about dad.

"What kept you away?" Bryce asked.

"Has mom told you anything about it?" dad carefully said and walked to the fridge, opened it and let his eyes scan the shelves inside as though he was looking for something more concrete than right words. He finally reached for a carton of eggs. Bryce didn't point out that there was one already on the counter. He was sure that dad knew about it anyway.

"No. Just that there were bad guys you fought with. I mean… you don't need to tell me if you don't want to."

But dad just shook his head and, smiling faintly, said that he deserved to know. He told him about a group of very bad men who were extremely powerful. No names were mentioned, but to Bryce, they sounded a lot like the politicians the news reports always berated. These men accused Uncle Lincoln of some nefarious things, and dad was determined to prove them wrong. Bryce nodded enthusiastically at this part, for he knew how much it hurt when people spread lies about those you cared about.

"It made these men very mad. They were so angry with me that they were willing to hurt the people I love."

The careful phrasing and intentionally detached delivery could only relate to one person.

"That's how mom got the scar?" Bryce asked, remembering dad's reaction when he had seen the mark on her arm. Without a confirmation, he could tell he guessed right. Dad pressed his lips together so that they almost vanished, then opened them, as if he needed to remind himself to breathe. Bryce didn't like mom's scar either, but it almost never hurt. He thought knowing this would make dad feel better, but he didn't believe the smile dad gave him.

"Afterwards," dad went on, "before I could get to your mother, someone else helped her. But they never told me about it, so I thought…"

This was where what he had grown up believing converged with dad's story. The word he was the same word that had always saddened Bryce when he had thought about dad. He figured they had both heard it too many times, even though it could no longer hurt them now that they were together.

The first pancake was done and dad put it on the plate as skillfully as though he had been making them for breakfast every day of Bryce's life.

"You know, it is pretty clear that you never expected mom and me here," Bryce remarked.

"How so?"

The boy pointed to the socket on the wall behind him.

"You have to cover them so that kids don't stick their fingers in. I mean, you know, the little ones. I know that it is dangerous," he explained, and dad smiled, as if proud he had a son who knew the dangers of electricity. It wasn't exactly the reaction Bryce was aiming for, but a pancake that smelled like vanilla and tasted like Panama in his mouth kept the chagrin at bay.

***

In her days of the most perverse highs and shattering lows, waking up in an unknown bed hadn't been an unusual occurrence for Sara. The smell of the unknown sweat or cigarette smoke had hit her before she had opened her eyes, and the blanket someone had covered her with irritated her skin. Sometimes a man whose name she could barely remember lay next to her, his arms on her as if she still was the woman he had met the previous night. Some mornings, it had all joined to wait on her and aggravated all the feelings she had sought to quell.

Nothing was familiar about the bed she woke up in today, yet it felt like home. The caress of the silken sheets on her legs made her want to indulge, to leave the worries about bills and the trepidation of the future outside of her little cocoon. But there was something she missed, something miraculously gained, a lot she ached to put to rest, and a note written in blue left on the other pillow. Kitchen, it spelled out in her – their – son's handwriting, impressively neat for a five-year-old. The size of "k" intentionally stood out because it was the first letter, and the "h" was a bit smaller than the rest of the letters because it was Bryce's least favorite letter.

The apartment was as majestic in daylight as it had seemed under the artificial lights of the evening. She would struggle to locate the kitchen as there were so many doors, but the meld of their voices served as her guide. Somewhere along the way, she passed the laundry room, and the smell of freshly done laundry accompanied her, as pleasant as a dandelion growing among grey cobbles.

Pausing at the entrance of the kitchen was unplanned. There was no need to spy on them and she should not let herself be overwhelmed in the morning already. Yet seeing them together, listening to them making plans for their second day together as a family, she couldn't help herself. She noticed how Michael's body was always turned to their son, whether he was pouring more pancake mix into the pan or opening the overhead cupboard to get another plate. When Bryce's eyes were deployed elsewhere, Michael's rested on him in warmth she could feel from across the kitchen, and when dad was flipping a pancake, Bryce watched him with admiration that left his mouth agape.

"Morning," she said and entered the kitchen. There was absolutely nothing normal about the normalcy of the scene in front of her. Since getting clean, her method of dealing with overwhelming situations was always to plunge right in and march through it. This morning, though, it didn't get her far. Upon seeing her, Bryce sped into her arms, forcing her to cease her steps, and as soon as Michael heard her voice, he turned, and the sight of him took her breath away. He was beautiful, as if no day had passed since their first meeting in Fox River. But the smile he sported today had renounced that smirk and what was left made her heart race. She wondered if he would ever stop feeling like a dream.

"How long have you two been up?" Sara asked, and even though their son assured her it hadn't been long, the abundance of food on the table suggested otherwise. Bryce took her hand and led her to the table and there were pancakes with bananas and blueberries and chocolate chips, and a bottle of golden maple syrup that glistened in the morning light.

She didn't notice Michael moving away from the stove. It wasn't until she was sitting down and a tattooed arm placed a plate in front of her that she realized he was standing behind her.

"You needed sleep," he told her. "Our boy was out before the second chapter finished as well."

"I was," Bryce nodded and reached for another pancake. Usually Sara wouldn't let him eat so much at once, especially something that definitely contained too much sugar, but it was a special day. A very special day and it was taking over her as abruptly and thoroughly as the storm overtakes the blue calm of the sky.

"Anyway," Michael went on, "I've been told you don't drink coffee in the morning, But I'm hoping that this is okay."

He needn't have put a glass of orange juice next to the plate for her to know what he meant. Just like the paper rose he had given her for the only birthday when there had been only a fence separating them, it was so much more than a simple sum of parts. It was a reminder, a reassurance, a promise, and his hand waited for hers on the glass, because he knew it, too.

Her fingers tentatively touched his, and as much as he had craved something simple and ephemeral as this during the past six years, it suddenly wasn't enough anymore. His slender fingers enveloped hers, and, bending down, he brought her hand to his lips. After kissing her knuckles, he kept her hand gently pressed against his lips, and she wished it would never end.

He sat down across from her. He had told her to eat, remarking she was too thin, but now wasn't setting an example. His fingers circled the rim of his own glass of orange juice, and his eyes caressed her face, departing only to check on their boy.

It was just a simple breakfast, the kind of start their every morning in Panama would have if she hadn't left the room in Gila before he woke up. Orange juice, banana pancakes, childish laughter piercing through the quietude of freedom. But, it dawned on her, had that morning gone according to their lovers' plan, she would have taken that pill and there would be no Bryce. Of course there would be another child, probably more than one baby by now, but the idea of neither of them being Bryce was daunting. As nonsensical as the past six years had at times felt, they were perfect, had to be perfect, if they led them to this.

Her heart swelled when their son exclaimed they were out of banana pancakes, his favorites.

"Well then let's make some more," Michael said, already getting up.

 

***

By the time Lincoln finally reached his brother's apartment building, his shirt carried a distinct smell every hour he was late for. There was the atrocious perfume the lady in Panama wore and all the coffee that had missed his mouth; more sweetness from bananas, and the sand, he could swear the sand had a fucking smell as well. The blood was detectable too, of course, but that was something he was inured to.

Both elevators were in use and he was done waiting. He took two steps at the same time and didn't slow his treads to knock on his brother's door when he reached it. They had to be expecting him, for it wasn't locked.

"Where are they?" he exclaimed before the door behind him closed.

They were in the kitchen. Sara was sitting by the table, a glass of what he presumed was orange juice in her hand. If he were as perceptive as his little brother, he would notice the hair didn't match the shade from his memory, but all that Lincoln saw was that she was alive, breathing and just … okay. Not lost forevermore in the gorging desert or taken apart and tucked away forever by the currents. Her bones weren't being arranged into a shape of a skeleton on a cold, metal trolley while the medical examiner was counting down hours until they would get to forget about her until the morning.

The boy was on the counter, a plate of pancakes in his hand and a bit of chocolate around his mouth. His eyes widened at the sight of Lincoln, and Lincoln suddenly couldn't remember a single thing he had meant to say. He just ran his hands over his scalp and reminded himself that this wasn't a dream and he hadn't gone back in time. The latter he could so swimmingly believe, for the boy looked exactly like Michael had when his legs too had been too short to reach the floor when perched on the counter. But now Michael held a pan in his hands and was making breakfast for his family like any other dad, like he had never incurred the past six years.

"Uncle Lincoln!" Bryce shouted, hastily put down the plate and jumped off the counter. A fork he had been holding had fallen to the floor after him and Michael bent down to pick it up. It was such a normal thing to do that it should go unnoticed; however, almost a decade had passed since Lincoln's life swirled off the route of normalcy. He would never admit it, but tears invaded his eyes at the sight of a dish towel draped over his brother's shoulder. Holding his nephew in his arms for the first time definitely didn't help the matter.

"Uncle Lincoln, are you hungry? Because we have a lot of food," Bryce said and, once out of his uncle's embrace, ran back to the counter to get another plate. He enumerated five different kinds of pancakes they had and explained the difference between Belgian waffles and the regular ones. Lincoln did his best to follow the stream of words that absolutely reminded him that, excluding the airplane meals, it had been over a day since he had eaten, but every step the boy made captivated him. He was so pure, so happy, despite having been conceived in the world where a tomorrow was as feeble as hopes of survival. And yet somehow, there had always been a tomorrow, even and perhaps especially when a wish for it had evanesced. If Lincoln had ever doubted whether survival had been worth the marks it had left on him, those doubts departed when Bryce looked over his shoulder to ask if he was hungry enough for the big plate.

Lincoln looked at Sara. Could it be that the last time he had seen her they were still in Fox River and the greatest nightmare tormenting him was his impending execution? He would be dead if she hadn't risked everything by leaving the door unlocked. As a thank you, he had thought he had placed her name on the list of those whose demise he had caused. The weak smile she was giving him now was absolutely insufficient.

He pulled her onto her feet and clasped his arms, tanned enough to render some of his tattoos barely discernable, around her.

"Thank you for being alive," he whispered, and the alternative that had been such a seemingly irrefutable fact for so long made him wrap his arms around her even tighter. Perhaps a bit too tight, since she chuckled, claiming that she couldn't breathe. He let go of her, but before she could sit down again, he couldn't help himself and hugged her again, disregarding her previous remark.

"Here," Bryce returned, and the plate was so full he had to hold it with both hands. Then he spotted a stain on his uncle's shirt that alarmingly stood out from the pineapple yellow. "Uncle Lincoln, you're bleeding!"

"What?" Lincoln frowned before remembering the bandage on his left forearm. He had it changed before the last leg of his flight from Nicaragua, but apparently he had bled through it again. He truly couldn't care less as he had bled much worse many times before, but Bryce was such a perfect little boy in their senseless world that it seemed sacrilegious for him to know what blood was, let alone watch his uncle bleed. "Oh, yeah…"

He sought Sara's eyes for assistance, but Bryce was completely in control of the situation.

"Don't worry, mom can fix it," he assured his uncle, placed the plate on the table and asked dad where he kept the first aid kit. After learning it was in one of the bathrooms, he took mom's hand and together they disappeared down the hall under the watchful eyes of the two men.

"You know, Linc," Michael said before Lincoln could decide whether congratulations would be too mawkish and the proper thing to say would be the word that had plagued him ever since they had last seen each other. "As happy as I am that you are embracing my family, I wouldn't mind if you changed your shirt first. Because I can smell Panama from here."

The two brothers grinned at each other before each of them closed half of the distance between them. It was so overdue, Lincoln thought as they embraced. Back in Gila, he had put his own indignation first while the only plan his brother had made for himself was slipping away. It had been the first time he had failed as the big brother Michael for some reason thought he was, and his shortcomings kept piling up – until today. Maybe he was a coward for smartening up only when the woe had passed, but damn it, the roughed up knuckles of Linc the Sink had never made an admirable decision.

"I didn't mean it, Michael, none of it," he said. "I wanted to come back, so many times …"

"I know."

"… but then it had been so long that I just…"

"I know, Linc, I know," Michael said again, moving back so that they faced each other again. Shaking his head, he ran his hand over his head, and said with joy Lincoln had thought had left his little brother forever, "I'm a dad, Linc. And I, I have no idea what I'm doing."

"Bullshit," was obviously the only encouragement a big brother like Lincoln could come up with.

Ten minutes later, Lincoln had his shirt off and was sitting at the table with Bryce perched on his right knee. They were sharing a blueberry pancake (Lincoln of course didn't neglect to tell his nephew that if he thought this one tasted good, he should try his. Bryce glanced at dad to make sure Uncle Lincoln's remark didn't offend him, and to his relief, dad was grinning).

"Anyway, then things got even worse," Lincoln then continued the recount of his circuitous return to New York.

"What's worse than being attacked by a sheep?" Bryce asked, completely enthralled by the story and thus unbothered by the bloody bandages that had come off his uncle's arm. At least that was what Sara hoped Michael thought. She felt his eyes on her as she was tending to Lincoln's puncture wound. A clean-up crew, that was what he had once called her. It didn't require any effort to act as though they hadn't been apart for six years. There was a wound to clean, like practically every day they had shared, and a pair of eyes to avoid because they stopped the time whenever she gave in. Maybe it was a lid, covering all that had changed since they had last laid eyes on each other. Or maybe somehow, despite distance and time, they were still the same people who had eyes only for each other under the watchful eye of propriety and armed guards. Under Michael's tender gaze, it was almost impossible to believe anything but the latter.

"Cops showed up," Lincoln said. "With lights and the siren and all. Someone called them about sheep blocking the road. And … it was just after that ram ran into me horn-first. I wasn't just gonna stand there and bleed, you know? So I went after him. And cops thought that I, um…"

"Uncle Lincoln, did they arrest you for animal cruelty?"

"I'm not really sure what for, because they didn't speak English."

Bryce's forehead furrowed. Sometimes the police officers mom worked with in Lille took him for a ride in their squad car. They told him enough about their work for him to realize that it usually took more than a day for a person to get out of jail. He gasped when a possible answer dawned on him.

"Uncle Lincoln, did you escape from jail?!"

The caress of Michael's eyes was instantly replaced by alarm. Lincoln's eyebrows shot up as well. But Sara had spent years fearing a variation of this question and practicing the proper tone. The encompassing feeling of rubber gloves, the one thing that had given her worth before she became a mom, steadied her further.

"Don't be ridiculous, Bryce. Of course your uncle didn't break out of prison. He explained that it was all just a misunderstanding and they let him go. Right, Lincoln?"

Lincoln nodded, even though neither of the two versions was correct. But he really didn't need to get into that at the moment, so he coughed it away. Bryce seemed disappointed by the answer but quickly cheered up when his uncle started talking about the turbulence he had experienced when the plane flew right through a storm. She didn't dare to check the effect the innocuous remark had on Michael, and consequently, Lincoln definitely wouldn't bleed through his bandage again.

***

 

She was avoiding him. Preventing Lincoln from buying Bryce all the sports equipment they stumbled across and meeting LJ for the first time were perfect covers that didn't fool him.

It wasn't that she didn't talk to him. As they were choosing the furniture for Bryce's room, she wanted to hear his opinion on every bed they saw and how many chests of drawers they should get, as if he would know better than her. They talked all day but barely said a word to each other. And every time they walked through the part of the store with master bedrooms, she made sure Lincoln was the one talking.

They bought a room's worth of furniture without any of them mentioning France out loud, let alone making it clear that Michael's apartment was more than a temporary home. They had never been a couple of grand or even transparent words, and it never unnerved him until now. The more his mind was telling him that it was just the space she needed, that she was just as overwhelmed as him, that right now all it matter was their son, the less his body listened. His feet somehow always found a way to inconspicuously get closer to her. His hands kept finding excuses to reach out for her without his conscious consent, and it took an incredible amount of volition to pull them back. His heart skipped every time she turned to him when they weren't discussing something, as if she had forgotten he was there, or, as he hoped, because he was there.

In a way, it felt like Fox River again. He was in the yard, knowing without glancing at his wristwatch that it was time for her break, and without his eyes ensconced on the entrance to the infirmary, he knew when she was only one turn of his head away. Refusing to follow her with his eyes was as unbearable as watching her, so he opted for the latter, for at least he saw her. Her cheeks were a bit flushed, and it abashed him to hope it was because of him and not the chilly wind. And when she kept her focus on the path under her feet, he longed to be the reason. It was wrong, undeniably and shamefully wrong, but never before had it felt so right.

Now, of course, there was no fence to obstruct his view and to curl his fingers around. Now all he could do was keep them deep in his pockets, denying them the freedom to touch her for the sole sake of checking once more that somehow, they had beaten the impossible odds, again.

Those few moments he felt her warmth under his fingers, she seemed to welcome it. But accepting it as a woman or as a mother of his child were two different, not necessarily inclusive things. As much as he longed for the former, the latter had been a cruel mirage just two days ago, and disappointment should shame him. It had been six years since desires of their hearts matched. Even if there was no one else, her love for him could simply melt away, like a snowman after the first kiss of the spring. He would be the first to admit that he had taken so much from her, her hard-won sobriety, the cherished job, her father, the unmarked skin, that it was astounding she had kept his name on her lips throughout the years.

It wasn't until they were in the grocery store that it was just the two of them again. Lincoln was introducing his nephew to American brands of candy and Bryce duly pretended not to have tried most of them before. Sara's lips were getting thinner as the pile of colorful wrappings in all shapes and sizes grew until finally, she told them not to go overboard with it and headed toward dairy products (or the boring section, as Lincoln called it, failing to make his nephew chuckle).

Michael combated the urge to follow her for seconds that dragged like the years without her. But then she vanished among other shoppers and it wasn't a choice anymore. It wasn't danger that concerned him; there was no rational reason to follow her if he discounted the irrational need to keep his eyes on her.

He sped up his steps, his hands grabbing the insides of the pockets of his jacket, his shoulders slouched slightly forward. He hadn't walked like this, trying to knock a few inches off his stature and conspicuously blending in, since the early days of his escape from Fox River. It was a thrill his desk job didn't offer him, and as much as he didn't miss it, it felt good to have the adrenaline in his bloodstream again.

Just as he again caught a glimpse of her, someone crashed into him. He would have walked on as if it hadn't happened, but the person said his name and he turned, thinking he'd see a familiar face from work.

It was a man Michael didn't recognize, but for years strangers knew more about him than he would be willing to share. If at first The Company had looked for ways to defeat him, everyone now knew him for destroying The Company. It wasn't just the people who never missed a breaking story; he was the face of the most sensational story of recent decades and somehow all media outlets, even those that usually avoiding the political sphere, found a way to sneak him onto their front page. Maybe it was his looks, his daring plan or the damn tattoo that had the staying power. Maybe it was a combination of everything; regardless of the cause, his celebrity hadn't faded in the years since the news first broke out. And the award he had recently been given was the perfect excuse for reporters to remind America of its fascination with Michael Scofield.

It usually didn't bother him when people approached him, but in all honesty, there wasn't much he had cared about in the recent years. The man shook his hand that was uncharacteristically stiff today, then expressed his opinion of the current political situation. Michael tried to look the man in the eyes, but it didn't escape him that Sara disappeared from his view once more.

Sara got further away when a young woman asked for a picture between hyperventilating breaths. By the time he found her at the refrigerator with dairy products, he knew his steps were loud enough to give away his presence. She didn't react. She didn't turn her head to look at him, nor did she seem to be choosing yogurt. It was as if she sought the cool as a reminder that the warmth he knew she was basking in was real.

"You've been avoiding me," Michael said.

"A little bit, yes," she replied, granting him a sheepish smile, and he took it as an invite to step next to her. As soon as he did, her eyes dashed back to the shelves offering every yogurt flavor imaginable. He was sure that she picked up one completely at random, just to give her hands something to do. "Look, Michael … Thank you for everything. For giving us a place to stay, the food, all of it. Abigail said that I should be getting my credit cards back soon, so… I just, I don't want you to think that you are obligated to me in any way. That I demand or expect something from you just because we have a son. I just want you to have a relationship with Bryce, that's all I would ever ask of you."

"Sara…"

He reached out for the yogurt she was holding, intentionally covering her hand with his. A breath wavered on her lips, and his heart skipped a beat, because it had to feel the same for her as it did for him.

The life in which he had previously known her would deny him the right to take his time. He couldn't afford more than a fleeting feel of her, on the account of guards peering in through the infirmary windows or someone reaching for a gun in the name of justice. They had all the time in the world now and somehow it only augmented the significance of every second they touched. He had learned the brutal way that time was not something stored in jars and sold on the discount shelves of the supermarket.

They ran out of time again for him to tell her that it was a privilege, rather than an obligation, to be with her, and that what money could buy was at the very bottom of the list of things he craved to give her. When it had been just the two of them, it would have frustrated him, but seeing their son run into Sara's hands, trying to conceal his distress at the mound of sweets his uncle had thrown into the cart, was an interruption he would never grow tired of.


	13. Chapter 11 – The Evening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all,
> 
> I'm sorry it took me this long to update, but thank you for your patience! The good news is, I am now done with the first part of my studies and am graduating in a few days :)
> 
> Thank you for all your reviews, they really kept my spirits up these past two weeks. I really hope this chapter is not as lukewarm as the last one, and I hope to update more regularly again from now on ;)
> 
> Anyway, since we are now nearing the end of the fic, I was just wondering, would you prefer to have more Michael/Sara scenes, or the Scofields as a family? I can still alter the remaining chapters, so if you have a preference, maybe let me know?
> 
> As always, feel free to reach out with any questions, comments, or nudge me if the next chapter is again taking forever to be posted :)
> 
> I really hope you like this chapter, and please please review.
> 
> Much love, winter.

Their second night as a family didn’t go as smoothly as the first.

Bryce sat crossed-legged on the bed, his parents on either side of him (his uncle was supposed to be there as well, but after having dozed off twice in the park, he had reluctantly taken a rain check). The sheets were gathered around his ankles (it had taken four stores to find the bed linen with the world map on it. Lincoln had been completely aghast to discover that his nephew didn’t have a favorite animated character and didn’t follow superhero movies, and he started planning a major movie marathon on spot, followed up by the _real_ blueberry pancakes in the morning).

The books they had bought were displayed in front of the boy (three bags had been needed to bring them all home. Not all the books were for Bryce, though. As funny as it was to Sara and especially Lincoln, Michael made sure to get the best rated parental guides, for he was the kind of man who liked knowing minutiae of everything he dealt with). Bryce was choosing a story to be read tonight with such seriousness that Sara later berated herself for not having seen through it. But as she watched Michael pick up each book and read its back cover summary even though he, too, knew them all by heart by now, she couldn’t do much more than wish this evening could sprawl into forever.  

As it turned out, it wasn’t the story Bryce was opting for, but rather the words in which to convey it. He took a deep breath and looked at both of his parents.

“Dad, Mom, I think I can sleep by myself tonight,” he announced.

“Are you sure?” Sara asked, and her lips felt funny from the force with which she had pressed them together.

“I’ll be fine, mom,” he reassured her, and his eyes lingered on hers as though he really wasn’t. But he kept a brave face as dad read the story, although he didn’t comment as much as he usually did. The shape of his lips resembled mom’s when dad promised to keep the door ajar, and that if he needed anything, he should just call. After mom kissed the crown of his head for the second time, he closed his eyes so as not to watch his parents leave.

 

****

 

Sara didn’t say anything, but it was clear to Michael that Bryce’s request unnerved her. They had shared just enough fragments of their life in France for him to have a pretty good idea why, and he wondered if she chatted away about the things they had bought and still needed to get so that he wouldn’t bring it up. 

He was about to interrupt her ramblings to tell her how happy it made him that they were so close, but then he realized they had never had anyone besides each other. She wouldn’t take it like that, he knew that, and she wouldn’t want him to think like that for a second, but mere thinking back to the years he had unknowingly missed pierced through him as though it was something he should feel guilty for.

He too sat down on the couch, close enough to be considered it was next to her, yet offering her the distance they kept tiptoeing around.

“You know, he fell asleep in my arms last night,” he told her, successful at keeping the tone light and powerless to fight off a smile. He watched as distress left her lips until her expression matched his own.

“I didn’t dare to move all night,” he added.

She had kicked off her slippers and now sat facing him, her knees updrawn. Their son might not want cartoon faces on his bedspread, but he didn’t seem to mind having them on his socks. Or perhaps, Michael now wondered, he liked wearing socks identical to mom’s.

“You needn’t have worried. Once he’s out, he’s out.”

“So are you, apparently,” he tried.                                                                                          

“Yeah, well, that may be one of few things he got from me,” Sara laughed to his relief, but the inference lingered between them. _He’s just like you_ , she had told him.

There was a remote on the coffee table within their arms’ length. She could have so easily reached for it, letting the glare of the screen and the jingle of the commercial breaks numb them to each other’s presence. It was probably what most parents did after getting their children to bed. However, those couples had shared too many dull days to count and became inured to each other, and neither applied to the two of them.

She repositioned herself again. Her knees were no longer pressed against her chest as a comfort and a shield. It gave him the courage to ask what every minute he spent with their boy seemed to unequivocally answer.

“Sara, just how much like me is he?”

“I’ve been taking him to this psychologist in Lille. The best I could find. And she says there’s no need to worry. And, I mean, you’ve seen him. He’s healthy, happy, and so smart. He knows it’s something he got from you and, um, that makes it special.”

He still remembered how easy it had been for him to be overwhelmed at this age. The sounds reverberated in his ears until his head hurt and the patterns danced in front of his eyes and wouldn’t disappear even as he closed his eyes. There was no one around who could name his perception of the world, much less reassure him that it was okay. If he had once wondered what he would be with a hand to hold throughout his childhood, all that mattered now was that his son did always have someone.

She would brush it aside if he said it aloud, but he could never give enough to this woman who welcomed his child when it must have been most disadvantageous to her, and somehow ingrained so much love in him, love so many would rightfully say that he as a father didn’t deserve.

She went on before he could respond.

“Anyway, he told me you guys talked about the years we were apart.”

“I’m sorry if I overstepped my line.”

She shook her head.

“Why would you? You’re his dad. It’s yours to tell just as much as it is mine.”

He sighed and leaned forward, laying his elbows on his things. His hands wrung in words he struggled to find a way to express. She calmed them by placing her own hand on his, and just like on those scarce moments when she had sought the feel of him, his breathing halted somewhere in his throat.

“You’re his dad, Michael. You’ve always been his dad,” she told him. He took her hand in his, gently, as if still afraid of inadvertently hurting her.

“What did you tell him about how we met?” 

“The truth,” she grinned at the panic that widened his eyes. “You know. That you needed a doctor and I helped you. I skipped that part about the pipe being what you truly needed. And that it happened in prison.”

She watched him caress the skin of her knuckles, gaining confidence with every second that she didn’t pull away, buoying her up in return.

“And, um, there is something you should know. Just in case it ever comes up,” she said, and he tilted his head slightly to show he was listening. His eyes were still on her hand, intent as if there was still something about her skin awaiting discovery. “Our first date? I told him you took me hiking.”

She bit down on her lips as his eyes crashed into hers, recognizing the undertone of her words.

Really, it wasn’t that far from the truth. It was the first time he had taken her places. Granted, it was the moldy pipes in the ceiling and circuitous corridors he bore on his skin, and they were running away from the men deranged by the unexpected power, from red dots that wouldn’t discriminate. The smoke constricted their lungs, tears melded with sweat on her face, and desperation weighed on them, the choice leaving no other. It was the first time he held her hand in his, completely mesmerized by how well they fit together.  

“And I might have mentioned something about a filet mignon afterward,” she added.

“Well I do still owe you dinner,” he said, and her eyes glinted in the familiarity of words they had once tossed around, yet meant their every syllable.   

Banter used to come so effortlessly to them. Right from the start, when he had offered her the rehearsed lines, his heart had enjoyed her response as much as his calculating mind had. The smile her words evoked stayed on his face long after the door of the infirmary behind him closed, and during the nights when yet another setback kept him awake, the memory offered him a respite. Somehow it had been a way for them to find that needed middle ground between the cuts she tended to and the lies he told her, and the people they would be if they chanced upon each other outside the bars of Fox River. In a place where honesty had no space to occupy, it was a way for them to listen to each other, to hear the unspeakable.

Now there was no code to strike their words and no urgency to say them. Maybe it was the freedom that fumbled with their tongues, or perhaps the fear that normalcy might snatch away what made them special all those years ago.

“I might be overshooting my confidence here a little, but I would like to think that I wouldn’t sweat that much on a first date,” he teased, holding his breath as he awaited the reply.

“I guess there’s only one way to find out for sure,” she replied, without skipping a beat.

“It’s a date,” he gently said, squeezing her hand. “If that’s how you’re feeling.”

By now her arms were bent at her elbows and the scent of her wasn’t faint anymore. No answer left her mouth, but he felt the words of her eyes ripple through him, so merciless, so elating. It was just one more thing time had left unscathed, he thought, trying to find a reason not to lean closer to her, so close he would lose the ability to pull back. Just sitting there, watching her while respecting and not minding the distance between them, was as enticing as the knowledge of how good she would feel in his arms.

The sound of little feet he had thought he would never be blessed with reminded him that as much as they still fit the memories he had, there was now something fundamentally different about them. Casting a glance over his shoulder, he saw their son standing a few feet away, the pajama looking impossibly big on him (he still couldn’t believe just how little they had spent on their boy’s clothing. But Sara insisted that as long as he was outgrowing new clothes on monthly basis, there was absolutely no need to buy anything above the medium price range).

Bryce’s tiny fist tried to wipe away the tears that spilled from his reddened eyes, but he couldn’t keep up. If there was something he wanted to say, the words were rendered incomprehensible by his sobs.

“Oh, baby,” Sara said, and Michael felt her hand slip out of his. He watched their boy run past him and straight into her arms, turning his head away from him under mom’s tresses. He knew he should do something, but the uncertainty paralyzed him. His throat went drier and drier until it was a struggle to swallow down his uselessness.

“I’m so sorry,” Bryce finally managed, and Michael’s heart broke, for he was supposed to be the one to run out of time to apologize, not their little boy who was perfect to a fault.

“Shh,” Sara started gently rocking back and forth to soothe away the sobs. She kissed the crown of his head, assuring him that there was nothing he needed to be sorry for, and that he was a very brave little boy and that they were very proud of him. Bryce’s eyes still avoided Michael’s direction, so he didn’t see how Sara motioned for him to get closer. His body had the weight of lead when he finally yielded to her eyes. Slowly he repositioned himself until he felt more than just the warmth of her next to him. From the way their son’s body stiffened and he held his breath to keep in the distress, Michael realized his proximity was well known to the boy. As much as he wanted to ruffle his hair, he still feared it wasn’t his place to do so, and when Sara shifted to reaffirm the slight contact between their bodies, his arms still didn’t feel his own.

Bryce slowly, reluctantly, turned in Sara’s loosening arms, careful not to touch a certain spot on her arm. His head was bowed while he was gathering the courage to raise his eyes to his father’s, as if expecting a reprimand. For a very long and excruciating second they just stared at each other; then Bryce flung himself in his dad’s arms, and when Sara too laid her head on his shoulder, Michael had to remind himself that he was not dreaming and was still breathing. He had longed for this, for this woman and this child, and thought it impossible for so long he doubted he would ever become inured to any of this.

“Shall we give it another try?” Sara suggested way too soon for his liking, but it was almost tomorrow, and after spending an entire day running up and down the park, the boy’s body was limp now that the weeping had ceased.

Bryce nodded and let dad carry him back to his room. There his parents tucked him in again before lying down on either side of him again. They told him they wouldn’t leave until he was asleep and that it would still count as sleeping by himself. Dad had barely read half of the chapter by the time Bryce’s eyelids closed. Nothing about his serene cheeks indicated they had been tear-stained just minutes ago.

Michael put the book on the nightstand, then rolled on his hip, facing Sara’s awaiting smile. They listened to their son’s rhythmic breathing, their hearts beating too erratically to be lulled to sleep.

“You are happy about this, right?” she asked.

“I didn’t think I would ever be a dad,” he admitted.

Bryce had insisted on the blinds staying open for the night. He was enamored with the patterns the lights of New York painted on his wall and just a little bit scared of the darkness that was for the first time only his. Now the lights revealed the perturbance ensconced in Michael’s expression as he pulled the covers over their son’s shoulders.

“It’s just,” he said when she pointed it out, “it was like he was embarrassed that I saw him cry.”

“Well of course he was. You’re his dad. He wants to be perfect for you.”

“I would never…”

“Of course you wouldn’t. But he’s _five_.”

He let out a sigh with a nod. His eyes took in the room around them, settling on the same patterns that captivated they son, and she sighed too when the wrinkle between his eyes disappeared.

“Are you tired?” he asked her.

She had spent too much time in France for her body to forget its usual daily cycle so quickly, and she was sure that they both knew a part of her lied when she said no.

“Good,” he said, already getting off the bed. “Come on.”

 

****

 

Once they were back in the living room, he held open the door that led to the balcony.

“Give me a minute,” he said, and it was a minute they both needed. They might have bought furniture together, put their kid to bed, _touched_ , yet still a part of her couldn’t grasp that any, let alone _all_ of this was real, and the sight in front of her was of no help.

The lights around her were bright enough for her to count the floors of each building. Some towered above her, others sprawled in the distance. If matching the constellations on the night sky with pictures in books on her son’s lap had made her appreciate the beauty of life, the ostentatious display in front of her now sent ripples of euphoria through her veins. Behind the windows were millions of people just like her. Some may be witnessing the disintegration of their lives under the neon lights, and the anguish she could understand all too well. Others just went through their evening routine, switching on one lamp after the other, and she still couldn’t grasp that having someone, _the one_ to wake up next to was now her new, her forever normal. And the luckiest of them were making love in candlelight, letting their bodies say all the things the words were inadequate for, but she was certain that no one’s happiness could match her own.

She heard him near her, but neither put it into words. She let him take in the view, a sight she doubted anyone could become used to, and something in her belly tightened at the thought of her being a part of what captivated him.

In his hands were two glasses, the champagne ones as though they had something to celebrate, and a bottle of Perrier, for he remembered that she didn’t drink. Her memory had clung to every word they had exchanged and it had come up in passing that anyone but him would let go. She wondered what she was doing, still out of his arms. 

“I figured we should leave the orange juice for the mornings,” he shrugged, and somehow her heart managed to swell even more.

“You know, you don’t have to drink water because of me,” she told him, and he just smiled her words away. There was a small table and a couple of chairs on the balcony, but he brought a blanket they had bought on their first morning as a family. He spread it in front of the windows which offered a cool that contrasted with the heat of his body less than a foot away. She appreciated the space he had given her and used a bit of it, yet wouldn’t mind the absence of an excuse to be this far from him.

He had always made it so simple to forget what had never left her mind when he wasn’t around. She had walked the twelve steps by the chain-link fence every day and it reminded her of why she had to stay out, but whenever he found an excuse to touch her the way that would send anyone else to the Ad-Seg, it was as if no one had told her the first rule of working in a prison. Later, when there was no more fence and people knew she had been the one to tear it down, the grief melted in the warmth of his kiss, and what should be unbearably hellish somehow felt like heaven.

Tonight was no different. She had forgotten to cancel Bryce’s appointment and had to check in with Geraldine, and much later, when the world was significantly darker and brighter at the same time, it didn’t occur to her that her back no longer rested on the windows and that their bodies were turned to each other. Even without their closeness the night was warm enough for her to only wear a top, and the city lights rendered it impossible for the scar to remain unmentioned.

“Sara,” he said after she caught his gaze there for the second time. He had let her look away the first time, but now his eyes were insistent. She still didn’t know which color was his favorite, but she knew him well enough to have no doubt that ever since descrying the scar, his mind must have been raging, and her careful choice of long-sleeved clothing during the day didn’t bring him any ease. And as much as she had been telling herself from the moment their baby first kicked that the only past that mattered was the one she chose to remember, there was still the feel of foreign hands on her neck when the water from the showerhead fell down her body. She had never told anyone about it, never had the arms in which she could let it all go with tears.

Now the pair of arms for which she had abjured all others that might be and could keep her safe without making her feel so, was right there, doubtlessly just as scarred as hers.

“It’s not what you think, really. I got it while running away. I, um. I jumped onto a car, from a window, and the windshield broke. It’s the only scar I have,” she added, knowing her emphasis would do nothing to make him think there had never been any more.

“Was it the agent from that afternoon?”

“No. It was… He came to my NA meetings after…you got out. Only that his name wasn’t Lance and he wasn’t an addict. I think he stole one of the cranes you sent me.”

But it wasn’t how he had found them that Michael wanted to know, and the man’s identity was also just a little more than a lead-up. When it was the only reasonable follow-up question left, he asked it with the voice whose absence of emotions spoke louder than a scream or tears would.

“What did he do to you?”

“He wanted to know what dad gave me,” she said, but his eyes instantly reminded her she was answering what hadn’t been asked. She didn’t need to wonder whether he would be forthcoming in the slightest if she was to ask him about the years he had spent reclaiming his freedom. He would never disclose the scars covered by the ink, and for those marring his skin unconcealed, he would just smile and say that none of that still mattered now that they were together. The hypocrisy would infuriate her if he didn’t do it out of care, and it would be deviant if it wasn’t so pure.

She told him how he had tied her up and held her underwater, stripping her narrative of the number of times it happened and the shocks that ensured her lungs filled with water each time. She watched his composure slip away until he turned toward the lights. But the brightness around them didn’t hide him any better than it had in their son’s room, so he bowed his hands and parted his lips to ease his breathing.

“And he left you there to drown even though you told him about the key you gave me?” he of course picked up on her leaving something out of her recount. Her fingers tightened their grip on the stem of her glass, and all the emotions they had kept away from the events whose existence derailed their story almost fatefully augmented. 

“Sara? You told him that, right?” he probed, even though her silence was as clear as any eloquent sequence of words.

“If it was you in there, would you tell him?” she snapped back.

“That’s not same, and you know it.”

“Why?” she insisted, but he provided no answer. The silence started sounding painfully similar to being underwater, and if he wasn’t sweating on their first date, damn it, she wasn’t going to cry. “Anyway. You said you found the bag? So I take it you took care of your wound?”

Rather than putting his response into words, he held out his left arm for her to see for herself. There was no need for her to lay her hand to the affected spot, as it was clear in the light of the night that while it hadn’t healed perfectly, it looked better than the mark she bore. But as if they were still in Fox River, desperate for any excuse for a touch, to relearn the feeling of each other they had never forgotten, she couldn’t help herself. It sent jolts to all the right places, and the streets below them were too calm to drown his sharp intake of breath.

Just like on the day they had met, her eyes glanced over the inked patterns. But unlike then, when the intricacies had completely eluded her, the novelty on his hand caught her eye immediately. Before her heart could sink because of its intimate placement, she realized it was the words, an ending to a saying, and she knew its commencement without having to turn over his hand.  

It was just a saying, maudlin in its overuse, and millions must have it. But it was what made him different from day one and its location made it a promise.

“Sara, I meant what I said in Gila,” he said once she raised her eyes to meet his again, and despite all the apologies and the promises he had made to her that night, they both knew which three words he was referring to. And when he had no reason to lie anymore, this man meant every word.

“Michael, that was six years ago,” she managed, as if distance and time had had any effect on her.

“And I still mean it,” he said and held her gaze, just in case his words were not clear enough. 

Once her eyes left his to settle on his lips, he had to remind himself to breathe. Her head tilted slightly to the left and the distance between them was diminishing until her lips were tentatively laid on his, his lower lip caught between hers. He kissed her back as lightly as she had initiated it, and his heart was throbbing and his mind finally had nothing to dissect.

Her eyes were still closed when she broke the contact of their bodies. There was a taste of her ensconced on his lips, barely tangible but so unmistakably her, and suddenly not having her in his arms was unmanageable. He forced himself to wait until she looked at him again, and all the lights and all the stars were eclipsed by the spark in her eyes. He took her face in his hands and let his lips tell her what was inexpressible with words known to him.

If it was a surprise, it wasn’t an unwelcome one. She lifted her arms so that the insides of her wrists rested innocuously on his shoulders, but it was only enough for mere seconds. Her hands then caressed his neck, and maybe it was audacious of him, but he wrapped one arm around her and pulled her closer until she was practically in his lap. Something in his mind reminded him that this was too much way too soon, but he refused to listen, especially when her hands slid under his t-shirt. His muscles tensed at the familiarity of her hands, then eased under her touch as he felt her pressed against him like no time had passed at all.

There was a spot on his right shoulder blade where there was no ink and the skin was still rough in its redness. She avoided it so as not to cause him pain, and he remembered how she had been always been the one to take away his pain, first in her infirmary, then every time he shut his eyes when it seemed like he wouldn’t get out alive. But somehow he had always found a way out, and now they were here, together. He could feel her warmth under his roaming hands, and not enough time had passed since he had thought her dead for him not to deepen their kiss. His fingers were entangled in her hair, wanting her even closer, and her mouth opened under his and their hearts raced together.

He ached for her the moment her lips abandoned his and she moved out of his arms’ reach. She tucked behind her ears the hair he had ruffled, as if she tried to tuck away what had transpired between them. The arms she kept crossed, and the mere idea that she needed to fight the chill of the night while his body was on fire broke something in him.

“Sara,” he said, her eyes still dashing from one building to another, and just like they didn’t exist for him right now, he knew they didn’t for her either. “I was arrogant enough once to assume you would want a life with me. I am not about to do it again.”  

She shook her head, the tresses falling back onto her shoulders.

“Don’t be like that,” she told him and, before he could ask her what she meant by that, added that it was getting late.

He bowed his head and nodded. She was on her feet quicker than him, and he tried not to overthink it, especially when she waited for him to open the door for her. She paused before walking in, but if she waited for certain words or for a touch of a particular kind, he gave her no incentive to stay.

 

***

 

Space, fucking space, he mused later when retracing her steps toward the bedrooms. He wanted to give her space, but there was only so much of it that he could take, and he feared too much of it may give her the wrong idea.

As he walked down the hall toward a room in which he expected to find her, he passed the master bedroom. The door was ajar, despite his habit of always keeping it closed, but he gave it no thought. It might have been less than two days since he had last slept in that bed, but what had been became a blur that would never again be.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw her perched on the left side of the bed. Her hands were twisting in a frenzy that didn’t cease until he slowly pushed the door open and she looked up at him.

“You don’t need to stay here,” were his words as he leaned on the door frame, his body screaming the plea he didn’t dare to utter.

“I know,” she said. “But maybe we could just … lie, and talk?”   

They didn’t talk.

If it wasn’t for the scars they both bore, it would be like they were still in Gila. That night she had chosen the left side of the bed because it had been the closest when her knees had threatened to give way. Tonight there was a book on the nightstand on the right, a marker where he had finished reading on the last night of a life that now felt like a million years ago.

As they switched off the lights and were left alone, they lay as far apart as the width of the bed allowed them. Once their eyes were adjusted to the dark, they realized that the space between them reminded them of the ocean separating them when they had wanted to be this close to each other. So they shifted toward the center of the bed, little by little until their heads rested on the very edge of their respective pillows.

The window was left ajar, but the apartment was too high up for the sounds of the late night to perturb their loud silence. The faint light of the vibrant city made them blind to everything but each other. The curtain was lightly rustling, but the cool of the summer night could not quell the warmth that permeated their bodies, urging them to get closer.

Then he rolled on his back and her head was placed delicately over his heart. He didn’t care if she heard the ripples of blood it sent through his body, for he felt her shiver as he held her in his arms. He tried to keep the touch light, but she still felt like a brutal trick of his mind and she didn’t seem to mind being pressed against him. As her hand reached for his, he took it, putting all the words he wanted to say in the squeeze he had been withholding for six years. He caressed each of her fingers, the skin as smooth as he remembered, then enveloped them with his, just to make sure she could not slip away, for now at least. He wanted to take her hand to his lips and kiss it but couldn’t bring himself to break the embrace. So he bowed his head to kiss the top of her head, and for the first time, it didn’t carry a tinge of fear that it could be the last time.

Much later her fingers traced the hem of his t-shirt, then slowly tugged it upwards. He pulled it over his head, and as it fell somewhere on the floor by their bed, there was a tickle of her hair on his bare skin. Her fingertips followed the ink lines that had brought him to her all those years ago. His breath trembled when it left his mouth, and while his arms around her didn’t quiver, her touch was soothing just as it was searing. She shifted, and for a terrifying second, he stiffened in fear she might leave his embrace again. She didn’t, of course. Her lips rained light kissed along his jaw, her fingers still lulling him into peace he had thought would mock him forever.

Once their breaths matched the stillness of the night around them and their heartbeats could withstand the slightest caress without leaping, he turned his head to nestle his lips against her forehead. Her hand had stilled and her eyes were closed, and he wasn’t sure if she was even still awake to hear him.

“Please be here when I wake up,” he whispered.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all,
> 
> thanks for reading and all your reviews and your input! I'll try to include family AND MiSa scenes in the remaining chapters.
> 
> So, this chapter ... originally it was supposed to be the opening sections of the next chapter, but I decided to post it separately since the next chapter revolves around a single event and I would like to keep it in focus. You'll see :) thus this chapter might be a bit of a filler, but I think it is still important, as it shows character development and some relationship progress. Or at least that's what I have been telling myself for a few days now :)
> 
> I am almost done with the next chapter already, so it should be up by the end of the week. That's good, I guess.
> 
> Anyway, thanks so much for reading, feel free to review, and see you soon :)
> 
> As always, reach out with any questions/comments.
> 
> much love, winter.

For the second morning in a row, Michael didn't wake up alone, and just like the day before, he inhaled deeply twice to check he was still breathing.

Sara still rested on his chest, her eyes still closed in slumber, and it matched the last memory of the previous night. Her fingers were intertwined with his and her foot was still laid across his. He felt her chest rhythmically rise, then fall against his, completely relaxed despite and because of his arm that sprawled around her waist, keeping her in the place she had been absent from for so long.

Loose strands of her hair obscured too much of her face for his liking. He tucked them behind her ear, gently untangling the knots. She didn't stir, so he dared to trace her jawline with the pad of his thumb. Six years he had spent wishing for one more day, just one more moment, and now they had forever and it still didn't feel like enough.

His smile grew even bigger, somehow, when there was a soft knock on the door. Breaking their embrace, he laid Sara next to him, careful not to wake her while a part of him wished she would open her eyes at the disturbance and they would start the day together. He couldn't resist kissing the crown of her head, and the hair may not have been of the shade he remembered, but the scent was identical to the one that lingered every time she had leaned closer to him than to any other inmate in Fox River.

He picked up the t-shirt he had discarded the previous night and, pulling it over his head, walked to the door. There he was, their perfect little boy, looking up at him. Michael thought he descried the tiniest tinge of fear on his son's countenance, as though he worried that either this interruption, or the one from the night before, would be unwelcome. It wasn't, of course, and to his relief, Bryce's face was nothing but a gigantic beam as soon as he realized vexation was the furthest thing from his dad's mind.

"Ready to make breakfast for your mom?" Michael said, then scooped the boy up and they made their way to the kitchen, accompanied by giggles.

* * *

After having spent two days jetting around the country, promising an early parole to the infamous passport dealer and tracking down an aspiring actress who had almost gotten a credit in an indie movie that never got released (or had more than just one specific scene filmed), Abigail had a pretty good idea why Sara's fate was misconstrued for over half a decade. Yet none of the papers she had brought with her to Michael's place this morning had anything to do with it. Technically, it was still an ongoing investigation and statements would still need to be taken before she could disclose anything, but it was all just bureaucratic bullshit and she had crossed the line of professionalism with this case a long time ago. Thanks to her dear father, the odds of that never happening had never been in her favor, she mused when knocking.

It was Bryce who answered the door, excited as though they had seen each other more than once. And god, was he his father's son, standing so confidently in the entryway like he had taken his first steps there. He stared at her, his eyes as eloquent as the dusty old dictionaries on the back shelves of libraries and undoubtedly telling her something. If a day ever came when she could grasp his existence, she might just understand him.

"He wants you to lift him up," someone supplied.

Lincoln. Of course. He was a few feet away, kept hidden by the miracle of his nephew. Whatever he had been up to in Panama made him even larger, and the wardrobe he had apparently not yet refreshed emphasized it.

In the scrawny second their eyes locked, it didn't look like he already knew about her father. He stood absolutely still, with the exception of his fingers that didn't know whether to rub his forehead and grab the insides of his pockets. She had seen Lincoln Burrows dismayed enough times to know that thrashing and cursing was how he responded to the smallest trigger; what her father had done was an off the scale one, especially now that the little boy stood between them.

She wished he knew, though. Then she wouldn't have to be the one to tell him. And she absolutely despised herself for caring about his reaction.

"Lincoln," she nodded to him as she picked the kid up; not because of his words, of course, but strictly because the boy raised his arms, laying all his cards on the table.

"Abigail."

"Dad is making breakfast," Bryce informed her, and hurrying towards the kitchen was of no use, since Lincoln hovered behind them the whole way, looking as out of place as she was feeling.

She remembered Michael's apartment as a frightening emptiness that induced the feeling of entrapment. Walls were few and festooned with paintings as personal as the ones supermarket chains had to offer, and one would be hard-pressed to find something, anything that distinguished the place from a hundred others that awaited tenants. Nothing was out of its place, all the books always on the shelves and no piece of clothing was ever laying around. The place seemed as barely alive as the man who lived there was.

Now there was a kids' jacket on the floor, having slipped off the hanger. She had to step over tiny sneakers someone had been too excited, or tired, to put away the night before. She could swear the walls no longer appeared white, even though they hadn't changed the hue since the last time she was here. The air smelled of actual breakfast, not the sole cup of coffee, and somehow her steps no longer echoed as she walked down the hall that finally led somewhere.

"Mom's not up yet," Bryce said as they entered the kitchen, and there were children's books on the table and a basket of laundry on one of the chairs.

"You mom should get to sleep in every day," she told him, putting him back down.

"And she will," Michael assured her, and the pancake pan fit his hand so perfectly that all words she could think of fell flat. His shoulders were relaxed and the smile on his face looked like the most natural thing. It seemed impossible that he was the same man she had once found collapsed on the floor, his lifeline torn in pieces around him.

"Breakfast?" he asked her, and he didn't even sound the same. He no longer mulled the words over, modulated his voice to keep up a collected appearance. It wasn't a role; it was as if he had finally shed off the mask and came into his own.

Lincoln apparently considered himself to be a distraction, for he piled pancakes on a plate, took Bryce's hand and declared they were off to see what was on TV. It gave her a minute she needed to reclaim her voice.

"So how are you?" Abigail asked as Michael poured pancake mix into the pan despite her protests ("To go, then," he just said when she cited the meeting she was already late for). There looked to be at least three different kinds of pancakes he was making, and he juggled it all with a poise that would never give away this was only the second morning he had woken up to having someone to make breakfast for.

"You've always done a pretty good job of figuring that one out by yourself," he laughed, and yeah, a proper answer would be redundant.

"You feel guilty? For not finding them?"

"Of course," his smile faded somewhat, but he continued before a sigh of pity could leave her lungs. "But I know that I did everything I could. And that is something I have to thank you for. I've told you a couple of times that you missed your career path. I was wrong."

She was pretty sure it was time to flip the pancake, but his eyes stayed on hers. She wondered if he knew. It wouldn't be surprising; he had tracked down a serial killer once using only public records after all. Or twice, if you counted Oscar Shales. But then again, she doubted he would be making her breakfast if he merely suspected that all along she had part of an answer he had been desperate for.

"I have some papers for Sara," she broke their contact, opening the folder and flipping through documents that officially brought the love of his life back to life. When they reached the last one, Michael's heart swelled, and whatever doubts he might voice she silenced with a single glance.

"And I have something for _you_ ," she smiled, and from under the folder she pulled a blue card. She held it out and he saw it had _Happy Fatherhood_ written on the front. He carefully took it from her hand and stared at the letters, still in disbelief that the message they spelled out was aimed at him. "I, um, I wanted to get the blue _"it's a boy!"_ balloons, too, but I thought it might be overdoing it."

"Don't hold yourself back next time," he told her.

"I have one for your brother, too."

"Thanks for getting him out of jail, by the way. I would hate to be the one breaking him out again. In Central America, of all places."

"I thought he deserved something for, you know, communicating," she dared to say although she was now the one leaving something out of the communication.

Lincoln absolutely seemed to still be in the communicative mood when she got to the living room. He must have been waiting for her, as he was immediately on his feet. She wondered whether it was because of the instruction or out of intuition that Bryce increased the volume of the television and, together with the plate of pancakes, moved to the furthest end of the sofa to give them privacy.

"They didn't have any for uncles," she said as she gave him the card, just as blue as the one she had given Michael; she had crossed out _father_ in _fatherhood_ , writing _uncle_ above it. She figured she could do it in a prettier way and was absolutely sure better-stocked stores did have cards for uncles, but if one was to exclude their professional relationship, this was her making the first step. And besides, she was pretty sure that in the wake of what was coming, he would throw it away in a true Lincoln Burrows fashion.

For a moment she thought she had misread him earlier and he already knew, for he didn't take the card.

"Your nails are not pink," he then said, and her face had to look as confused as she was feeling, because he ran a hand over his scalp. "You used to always have pink nails, that's all."

Before she could figure out what to make of his observation, he went on.

"Look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for storming off in Morenci, for ignoring you, never calling from Panama…"

His words were rushed, but she got the gist of it. Lincoln Burrows, apologizing. From the corner of her eye, she noticed the boy looking at them rather than watching the documentary on airplane crashes. After flying for the first time, he probably developed a fascination with how planes worked.

It didn't really matter how she responded, since it would be annulled as soon as the contents of another final report on the Scofield/Burrows case was made relatively public. But there was a kid watching, and acknowledging the shortcomings was undoubtedly an achievement for someone who had built his reputation on toughness. As a firm believer in positive reinforcement she refrained from saying that there was enough stuff he should be sorry for that the phone battery would die on him before he could apologize to everyone.

"Lincoln, I think it is very easy to be in a forgiving mood right now. So why doesn't this wait for the dust to settle?" she gave him a response that was as much aimed at her as it at him.

* * *

Michael knew Sara was up when he heard their son excitedly greet her. His hands were sweaty as he waited for her to make her way to the kitchen. He tried to busy himself with flipping pancakes but settled for leaning on the counter, his head overwhelmed with echoes of his pounding heart.

He remembered last night, the taste of her on his lips, the feel of her in his arms. How overwhelming it felt, yet wasn't nearly enough. She had backed away before seeking his warmth again. It was just the way they were since having found each other again. A tentative step closer, then their eyes retreated and he was left wondering when they would run out of excuses to maintain the distance and have all the reasons to never part again. They could talk it out, of course, probably should, but somehow they never touched upon anything deeper than veneer. Whether they feared what would be uncovered or the havoc it might wreak, he didn't know.

They could never get out of the circular dance they were trapped in without testing the limits, he reminded himself, hoping it would not loom over them this morning. He forgot to breathe as his eyes landed on her, overusing her face for any sign of regret. She was smiling. If there was a bit of shyness in her eyes, it disappeared almost immediately, like she too hadn't been sure until something about him reassured her. As he breathed out the pointless fears, he somehow managed not to close the distance between them, erase the hour he had been awake for and rewrite it as waking up in each other's arms. Thank god she noticed the folder on the table, for he could no longer think of a single reason why the space they insisted on worked for either of them.

"Abigail brought something for you," he told her.

"Did I get my credit cards back?" her eyes widened as she hurried to the table, so close to him he could catch her in his arms. He tried not to take her words personally. Her strength was something he had admired from the moment he first placed her on the wall of his place in Chicago. A well-born, pretty young woman who could do anything, work anywhere, opted for a federal prison, tending to the vilest men the society had to offer. He watched her stand up to Bellick and budget cuts that would make any other doctor miss his sugar levels that first day in Fox River; then he put her through hell, made her crawl around the ceiling with him, a man she barely had a reason to trust, and she was scared out her mind and never showed it, kept going when most would break down on tears. And now she had brought up their boy, all by herself, turning a possible liability into her greatest strength with absolutely no indignation.

He wanted to pull her into his arms right then, forbidding her from ever again thinking she hadn't given their son enough. He had wished for many things in his own childhood, but what he had craved the most, love, that was something their son had in abundance. No toys and no appliances mattered when you were as loved as their boy was since before he had even been born.

He stood behind her as she glanced at each of the documents that bore her real name for the first time in years, waiting for her to get to the last one. He stepped a bit closer with every piece of her true self she reclaimed until he was so close that the smallest of moves would land his lips on the back of her head. Tilting his own head, he watched her reaction when she finally held their son's birth certificate.

Her jaw dropped when she realized their names were listed as the parents. Michael held his breath as she took in their son's name; it wasn't something they had discussed, and he wasn't arrogant enough to think it was the logical thing to do, nor claim it as his right. He would be the first to say that their son should have her surname rather than his, but when she looked at him and tears glistened in her eyes, he knew she wouldn't have it any other way.

"We have a son," she said with wonder, as though she was the one that had known about it for mere days.

She turned around and flung herself onto him, the side of her face nestled against his neck, her arms united behind his back. The force with which her body landed on his would impact his balance if he didn't welcome her with equal want. As they clung to each other, he couldn't believe that despite the years during which he had refused to let her go, this was the first time he held her like this. One of his hands was placed on her back, the other cradled the back of her head, both pressing her closer, even closer to him, so close that nothing could come between them again, ever.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all,
> 
> thanks for reading. So, as promised, here is the new chapter. It is a bit ... intense at times, haha. I hope you won't find it to be too out of character, though.
> 
> As always, you can always reach out with any questions/comments, either here or on tumblr.
> 
> I hope you'll like this, and please please review? Even if it is just a simple i like it :)
> 
> much love, winter.

When the sky carried the color of the setting sun and their son was asleep in his booster seat and Lincoln was saying aloud everything he had already known, Michael wondered if they would still be there, in that parking lot, had their day had a different start.

Lincoln had shown up at their place in one of his worn-out t-shirts, claiming it was the perfectly acceptable attire for an afternoon barbeque. He smirked at Michael's choice of a dark blue shirt, something absolutely too formal for a beer that would likely spill over the rim at one point or another and for the grass stains to be undoubtedly attained while chasing kids around Sucre's backyard. Bryce, safely ensconced on his uncle's arm, noted that commenting on someone else's clothing was not a very nice thing to do, but Michael just laughed. He kissed the top of his son's head before leaving to get Sara. Of course he could just call her name, but the one thing he disliked more than yelling was letting go of an opportunity to lay his eyes on her.

The door of their bedroom was ajar. He knocked lightly, but unlike their son he didn't wait before pushing the door open.

She stood by the bed and her back, her _bare_ back, was turned to him as her fingers fumbled with the zipper of her dress.

"I'm sorry, I…" he stumbled, pretty sure that just remembering his own name would take significant effort, but his body didn't retreat to give her space. As loud as the part of the brain instructing him to do so was, the reverence he had always prided himself on dissipated when her chin was on her shoulder and their eyes locked. He felt his skin changing color to a want impossible to conceal, while Sara was completely unfazed.

"It's fine, Michael," she smiled, although it wasn't, cornering someone like this, and he absolutely wasn't okay, not with the free will his bloodstream suddenly acquired. "Let's not pretend it was an immaculate conception. Would you mind helping me?"

His hands were shaking, yet felt as if they were of lead when he closed the door behind him. If he claimed to do it out of habit, he'd lie, for none of this was how he would usually handle things, and if he cited privacy, it would insinuate he had a control of his mind, which he absolutely didn't.

Who knew if his steps reverberated in her mind as they did in his. He would swear it was the loudest sound he had ever heard and derisively gave away how awkward his feet felt. How could this same pair of legs had gotten him out of so many perilous situations was a mystery to him, and the fact that her eyes were no longer on his did nothing to ease his breathing. When she faced her eyes forward, there was no other place for them to fall on than their bed.

Most of the handful of nights since the first they had spent together, they sneaked into their son's room when he was already sleeping, then tiptoed their way out before he woke. The couple of times they had stayed here, in this room, there was no hesitance and no excuse. By now the pads of his fingers, as well as his lips, had the shape of her face memorized. He kissed her mouth from every angle, with control that matched his indulgence, and while her fingers felt his stomach muscles constrict under their caress, his never strayed past the curve of her back. He wanted more, of course he did, and her heaving breaths indicated she did too, but it could never be just sex for them. And giving themselves over to the other in their entirety felt wrong when they could still barely say two words that didn't pertain to their boy.

"Lincoln's here?" she asked once he stood behind her, and he nodded before remembering she couldn't see him. He cleared his throat, but the voice with which he confirmed her words still didn't sound like him.

Her hair was falling down her back, and he gathered it between his fingers before moving it across her shoulders and letting it fall down her chest. It wasn't just because of his analytical mind that he noticed everything. The way she clutched the front of the dress to her breasts, the whiteness of her knuckles making him hope she wanted to let go as badly as he did. The complete absence of any marks on her skin, save for the couple of moles he remembered from the star-lit room in Gila. The graceful curve of her spine he now could trace with his eyes without any fabric being in the way; the hem of her underwear.

As he reached for the zipper, his knuckles brushed against her skin, by accident as well as on purpose. The finesse that could turn a random piece of paper into an expression of love was long gone. He held his breath when pulling the zipper up, but his blood was still rushing to all the inappropriate places.

Once the dress fit her perfectly and she smoothed out the creases on the front, he still didn't move back. She stilled when her tresses were once again in his hand and he flicked them back over her shoulder. He watched them fall down her back in all their lavishness, and suddenly his mind was clearer than ever before.

"You look beautiful."

The words left his mouth without his consent, and he couldn't believe he had never told her before. It had captivated his mind, every morning, every moment he laid his eyes on her in Fox River, messing up his cool concentration and best-laid plans. Later, on those scarce instances when his self-loath allowed him to remember her as she had been before her last day, he thought back to how surprised he was on their first day to discover that she was _this_ beautiful, despite having watched her face on his wall for months. Even rarer did he recall their night in Gila, when the beads of sweat glistened above her eyebrows and he couldn't believe she had let him put them there.

And yet, somehow he had never told her.

"You're beautiful," he repeated as she glanced at him over her shoulder. Her lips, carrying the summer shade that his face would soon share, were parted, and she let her eyes get lost in his.

His hand reached for her hip, and under his touch she turned so that his arm was wrapped around her waist. If she made a step back, the back of her knees would hit the edge of their bed, but her desire for that was no bigger than his. She didn't stay put either, though.

With the tiniest step forward, she bumped her shoulder into his. Gently, yet it knocked all air of his lungs.

"We match," she said, and the hue of simple summer dress was the same as the one of his shirt. But it was merely an excuse to get closer to him; it had to be, for the distance between them remained decimated after her remark. They were close enough to each other for him to feel her breath on his skin and it made his blood seethe.

It was only a matter of seconds before he would lower his lips to her, ruin the lipstick so delicately applied, and forget about their son and his brother and the barbeque they were already late for. And from the way her chin was tilted upwards, her mouth all but offered, he knew she wouldn't mind adding a few more minutes to their delay.

Sara kept reminding their boy not to run around, but he always failed to listen and she never seemed peeved by it. Now his approaching treads counted down the seconds Michael still had to indulge in the feel of her while breathing out his erratic heartbeat.

Just before there was a knock on the door, he let go of her and stepped back, his hands again buried in the pockets to conceal their desperate want. She tucked the strands of her hair behind her ears, something by now he came to understand as her means of collecting herself. She was so much better at it than him; her skin wasn't reddened in the slightest while his might as well be on fire.

"Mom, dad, Uncle Lincoln says that if you two aren't ready soon, he'll get himself a beer," Bryce told them, opening the door but not stepping in, as though his parents' bedroom was out of bounds to him. His voice then dropped to a confiding whisper. "I really don't want him to start drinking before we get to Uncle Sucre's."

"Well, we don't want that to happen, do we," Sara laughed, as if intentionally making it impossible for him to take his eyes off her.

"Wow, mom, you look so pretty," the boy smiled at her, and, god, Michael thought, the truer words had never been spoken.

* * *

By the time they finally got to Sucre's house, Lincoln's forehead was covered with sweat. He had tried to ingrain in his brother a disdain for speed limits similar to his, and while there had been a stretch of a few years when it seemed he had succeeded, today Michael observed every fucking road sign they passed. Lincoln had plenty of names for drivers of such kind, but there was an impressionable young kid in the booster seat, retracing their journey with a map on his lap and pointing out points of interest that were located nearby.

"Uncle Lincoln, are you hot?" Bryce asked him just as a woman that must have been in her 70s and on her way to Mass overtook them. "Because I'm sure dad can turn the AC on?"

Sucre had cried when Lincoln called to tell him about Sara.

"Doc," he now managed before his voice vanished and his vision became blurry. He hid it by clasping his arms around her; but that was Sucre keeping it together, of course. He then wiped his eyes with the back of this hand and squatted in front of the little boy, who inquisitively observed his every move. Sucre kept opening his mouth, then closing it. When no words came out, he finally just pulled Bryce in his arms. Lincoln thought he held the kid way too tightly, but before he could point it out, C-Note did it for him.

"Whoa, Sucre, let the kid go," he said, squatting next to Sucre. "Hey, buddy. So you've been in France all this time, huh?"

"Well, I was getting worried," Sucre said to his two old friends. "I expected you guys like an hour ago."

"If he'd driven any slower we'd have been pulled over for impeding traffic," Lincoln snorted.

Thank god they then made their way to the backyard, through the house, onto the back porch and then down the three steps, for the meat on the grill was way past well done already. Sucre's eyes had dried, but Lincoln still didn't leave his side just in case. They bickered about the seasoning, and if they asked for Michael's opinion, he would not be able to give one since he was barely listening. His eyes were on Sara, just making sure she was okay, not overwhelmed by the attention, though he knew she would never let it show.

She sat on the patio swing, between Kacee and Maricruz. Sucre's middle daughter brought her a glass of lemonade, walking carefully so as not to spill a drop, while Lila, the oldest, was ecstatic to show Bryce the mementos she kept from her trips to Mexico. Sucre's youngest, just a bit over a year old, was wailing in Maricruz's arms. Sara was telling her something, supporting her words with instructive movements of her hands, but rather than doing as suggested, Maricruz simply handed the baby to Sara. The quieter the baby's wails became, the more Michael's heart swelled.

Sucre had to say his name three times to get his attention. There was a beer in his hand, but Michael just shook his head, saying he'd have whatever the kids were having.

C-Note's eyes popped out in affected shock.

"Snowflake! Remember when you used to be fun? How you put those bombs together and we would go and break into buildings?" he was laughing about it now, but laughter had been the furthest thing from anyone's mind when any of their actions could have gotten them killed.

"I have a family to take home now," Michael smiled without even trying as his eyes found his son again. Sucre followed his gaze, his vision of course once again blurring slightly.

"A boy, huh? Papi, three times I pray to God for a boy and I get three girls."

Michael just shrugged, listening to the admirable Spanish in which his son all of a sudden started conversing with Sucre's daughter. He hadn't even realized he could speak Spanish.

Bellick was supposed to come, too, but got held up in Montana, where he was tracking down an escaped convict. Because he still hadn't found a trustworthy coworker and had a mortgage on his and his fiancée's new house, he promised to fly to New York some other time. Henry's relative was in a hospital, so he had to decline the invitation as well. Before Sucre could repeat whatever lie Paul Kellerman had given for not coming, Lincoln interrupted him.

"Fuck Kellerman," he said.

For the first time that day, Michael's attention wasn't fully on Sara. His chin jerked in Lincoln's direction when he realized that Lincoln didn't know the two things about Kellerman yet. After his brother had left for Panama, Michael hadn't figured it mattered anymore; and in the elation that surrounded the return, he forgot that they had never discussed what he had known for a couple of years. And just because Lincoln more often than not refused to acknowledge the past, it didn't mean that he ever truly let go of it.

"Oh, come on, Linc," C-Note said. "Kellerman is not that bad."

But Lincoln of course wouldn't hear it.

"Fuck him," he repeated.

* * *

God, it had been years, almost a decade, since she had last felt like this, Sara thought as she sipped the lemonade and the gentle afternoon breeze kept ruffling her hair. It wasn't that she hadn't worn a dress in years; she had one on every time she went to Bryce's school or when they went to eat in a restaurant that was fancy by their standards. And come the summer, she wore dresses shorter than this one to combat the heat. But all those times, she wore it as a mother; she had never thought twice about the amount of skin it exposed or just how well it fit her body. And absolutely never had she been aware of the eyes it attracted, and she relished in the found-again feeling of being a woman.

Now when there were people around, it was laughingly easy to hold his eyes, to withstand their unwavering focus without seeking the neutrality in their surroundings. Maybe the crowd made feel safer; perhaps it smartened her up, making realize just how much she hated the distance between them now when they weren't alone with the space to fill up.

Bryce's new uncles had decided to teach him about sports. Bryce knew the basics from playing with kids that kept coming and leaving their home in Lille, and his eyes widened when the men's instructions evolved into a historical overview of the most important players and games. But since each man had his own favorite team, they started throwing names around and statistics whose glory they couldn't quite verbalize.

Michael sat down on one of the porch steps. The botched history lesson seemed to entertain him as much as it did her, and the arguing was soon eclipsed by the silent talk of their eyes.

She hadn't even noticed Lincoln breaking away from the group until he walked past her and toward the table with food.

"Taking a break from maternal duties, Sara?"

She thought it was alarm that she discerned in Michael's eyes just before she broke their contact to focus on Lincoln. At first she planned to simply laugh away his remark, but after he cast a glance at her over his shoulder, she realized he wanted her to follow him. With her glass being only half-full, she might as well.

He cleared his throat as she stood next to him. She felt Michael's eyes on them, although and especially because their backs were turned to him.

"Look, Sara," he started, and his hands couldn't quite get the right grip of the plastic plate. "You probably don't remember but… Back in Fox River, I asked for something."

"To look after your brother when you're gone," Sara said without skipping a beat. She wasn't sure what to make of surprise his face was stricken with.

"Yeah. And I guess by now you know I didn't exactly return the favor."

Her hands reached for the jug of lemonade, but her fingers froze on the handle.

"How bad was it, Lincoln? When he thought I was dead?"

He sighed. His eyes darted from one meat choice to another, just like his mind was choosing what to tell her. While a part of him firmly believed that this was something his brother should tell her himself, he had known Michael his whole life and had been the one raising him for a large chunk of it. And that motherfucker was always economical with the truth when it pertained to himself, much less about the things he no longer deemed important, regardless of anyone else's opinion.

But then again, what good would it do to her, knowing Michael had spent evenings looking for her features in sketches of unidentified bodies and broke Lincoln's nose in the wake of his breakup with another woman? Lincoln might have started opening up to the idea of resolving, rather than burying stuff, but was still fucking selective as to what exactly should be out in the open.

"Do you know about the Company? What it was, what it did? What happened to it?"

"A bit, yeah," she nodded, and he hated how she was hanging on his every word.

"And you know about the tattoo?"

"Yeah."

"Then what else do you need to know? He did it for you. All of it. Bruce Bennett sure as fuck knew what he was doing, making that video."

From the way her head jerked toward him he knew that despite his caution, he said too much.

"Fuck. You didn't know about that."

"What video?"

The meat he had put on the plate suddenly assumed a weight of the world. He pinched his eyes shut. Even though he now knew it to be fake, just like the movies, it had been on his eyelids for too long for him to be unflustered with a flip of a coin.

"Just forget I said anything, Sara," he said, perfectly aware she wouldn't.

"What video?" she repeated and he felt her hand on his forearm. He looked at her, convinced this was a point he could get across without using words. Her face lost the little color it had and he knew she got it in one. Even after the tape had been destroyed and discredited, no details were needed for a mere mention to wreak havoc. "Of me being…"

The squeeze of her arm and the intensity of her eyes wanted him to tell her more right when he wanted to be silent the most. A quick movement of his finger showed her how it had all ended, and he thought the horror would knock her over. Somehow she managed to stop her eyes from turning to Michael. Bryce was on Michael's lap and they talked, but not for a second did Lincoln think his little brother was unaware of their backs turned to him.

As Sara slowly breathed in and it sounded painfully like the breaths that had beleaguered Michael the months, years after her supposed death, Lincoln covered her hand with his, the best reassurance he could think of.

"I just wanted him to be… better, you know? And he just wouldn't let go. Maybe I just didn't understand, I don't know. But I would have never pushed him if I had known about you and Bryce."

Before she could gather her voice to assure him that she would have wanted the same, a sound of a gunshot pierced the air.

* * *

He had never seen her like this before, Michael realized as the day had comfortably settled into the afternoon. He sat down on the porch, on the second step, from where he had the perfect view of her. She had worn makeup in Fox River, but it was subtle and professional, just like the clothing she had opted for. Now, when they were spending their days strolling around New York and picnicking at all their favorite spots in Central Park, she kept it simple with leggings and a casual top. It wasn't that the lipstick was conspicuous and the cut of the dress daring; it was a simple summer dress and the color of her lips was just barely darker than usual, but he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

He hated to be this man, but he observed the way her dress fell over the curve of her breasts. His eyes trailed the hem of her dress that ended above her knees, then traveled down her legs, so perfectly shaped, all the way down to her ankles, so gracefully crossed. He remembered how good it felt, having those legs wrapped around his hips, welcoming him, urging him on. It should abash him, thinking of her like that, and he knew his indiscreet glances didn't escape her attention. When she didn't avert her eyes, he found himself being even more captivated.

Michael didn't think much of Lincoln passing Sara on his way to the table with food. But when she got up to follow him, breaking the contact that finally seemed unbreakable, a rush of asinine panic hit him, the one that overtook him so effortlessly when she was involved.

He didn't notice their boy running to him until his small arms were already wrapped around his neck and Bryce's head was nestled against his chest.

"I don't think I like sports that much," Bryce told him, still watching Sucre and C-Note out of the corner of his eye.

"I don't either," Michael said softly.

The boy then repositioned himself so that he was able to look directly at dad, blocking Michael's view of Sara. Being unable to read the body language of hers and his brother's turned backs lost on importance when he was embraced by the tiny arms of his son.

"And the Coke is so funny. It's mango flavor, dad. And I like mango and Coke is okay, on sugar and special days, but why would anyone mix them?"

Michael didn't know. His fingers were still impossibly gentle as they moved the loose strands of hair off the boy's face, but just like Sara's, they kept falling back. One more thing he definitely got from her, he smiled.

"I didn't know you speak Spanish," he said.

"A bit," Bryce shrugged. "I know I was supposed to grow up in Panama."

"Mom told you that?" Michael hoped his son didn't notice how thin his voice became. "Well, maybe we could go there now. For a holiday."

Bryce shook his head.

"But Uncle Lincoln says everything about Panama is horrible."

Michael laughed and instinctively leaned to his right to find his brother. Laughter and whatever remark was to leave his mouth was quelled somewhere in his throat, because Sara's shoulders were sloping and her hand was on his brother's arm. Even though the tresses hid her face from him, cold pierced through him. Of all the things Lincoln might have just told her, Michael couldn't decide which one was the best to hope for.

Bryce noticed that something was wrong.

"Dad?" he asked carefully, but before Michael could swallow down his dread to reassure his son, a gun was fired.

The group gathered in Sucre's backyard had heard the sound too many times not to have formed an instinctive reaction, and they had lost too much to bullets for panic not to rush through them. Michael covered the back of his son's head with one hand, placed the other in the middle of his back and pulled him onto his chest.

He was too far to get to Sara, again, and the fear he had thought he would never experience again was cutting him in half. His eyes dashed to her, desperate to find her and afraid of what he would find. He saw Lincoln push her behind his back, too quickly for him to make sure she was okay. As the eyes of the two brothers met, they simultaneously realized the gun wasn't fired anywhere near them and that everyone was okay.

"It's just kids with BB guns across the street," Maricruz said calmly, and Michael's arms around his son loosened. He knew he should say something, but his hands ran up and down his son's arms without the company of words. Bryce's forehead was furrowed, a result of dad's intense reaction rather than the fear. Over his son's head, Michael saw Lincoln move to the side, and there she was. The blue of her dress was too dark to show any trace of blood should there be some and her chest was heaving and her eyes gave away how terrified she was, but she was fine. His eyes traveled from the top of her head to her feet, twice, before he let himself breathe out.

C-Note, who had thrown himself onto the ground and somehow managed not to knock the grill over, got back on his feet.

"What kind of a neighborhood are you living in, man?" he glared at Sucre, who just mumbled something incomprehensible in response. C-Note then grabbed the baseball bat and ran around the house to the driveway to see for himself.

Lincoln ran a hand over his scalp and walked over to where Maricruz and Kacee were sitting with their kids, just making sure they were all okay.

Sara's eyes were still on Michael's, and this time, he was the one looking away.

"Go to your uncle," he said to their son. Bryce nodded and ran to Lincoln; he had closed half of the distance when his path collided with Sara's, and Michael watched her bend down and kiss their boy on the forehead. She seemed to be clinging to him with a much greater relief than the one permeating his arms. When she finally let Bryce go, she hurried to the porch, to him, and she walked up the stairs, past Michael, barely casting a glance at him.

* * *

Perhaps after that what followed was inevitable. It had always been like this for the two of them; they had always needed that one push for the certainty to depart their secluded minds and shape the reality. The first time he had kissed her, it was because of his brother, yet the keys had been the furthest thing on his mind when he leaned in. The second time, he had thought they only had seconds before he would lose her, either to handcuffs on his wrists or in death. Maybe it was the perfect moment he was always waiting for, the perfectionist he was, and only when she had been slipping away did he let himself admit that there was nothing perfect in the world apart from their love.

He waited until she was inside the house, the tapping of his fingers on his thighs increasing in impatience. The clicks of her heels as she climbed the three steps up the back porch resonated in his mind, eclipsing the music playing and the children chortling. He was the only one to hear the door close. No one would notice them gone, he decided, maybe just tricked himself into believing.

He followed her, stealthily and with his head bowed, much like that afternoon in Gila. His steps acquired soundlessness with ease, as if once again carrying out a plan which had all the odds against him. He passed through the kitchen and the living room until he saw her standing on top of the staircase. After their eyes locked, she vanished from his view, like mirages that had come for him every time he had thought the Company finally beat him.

Taking two stairs at a time, he retraced her path, catching a glimpse of her at the end of the hallway. Once again she made sure he saw her, then disappeared into the room that turned out to be the bathroom.

She didn't let him ask her if she was alright. The door had barely closed behind them when her hands cupped his face and her lips were pressed against his. Unlike the first time she had kissed him against the backdrop of the lights of New York, there was no hesitance, and once her mouth opened under his, it was shamelessly easy to forget that he could count the days they were together with one hand in hers, while he would need both for the years the mere memory of her could bring him to his knees.

There was a vanity a couple of feet away, and after he perched her on it, it turned out now they could look into each other's eyes without either titling their head. But they had been caressing with their eyes for days now and their bodies were done being ignored. Her mouth tasted of lemon, and by the time his lips moved elsewhere, hers were all but bereft of the lipstick he had appreciated in the morning.

She tilted her head backward, as though knowing how desperately he needed to kiss the skin whose smoothness was unmarred, trace the path no knife had ever taken. He paused, relishing in the throb of her heartbeat under his lips, then kissed his way downwards, and the closer he was to the hem of the dress, the plainer his need was and more tortuous it would be to stop if she asked him to. His hands followed the curves of her body through the fabric of her summer dress, and when he looked up to see if it was okay, there was no objection in her eyes. He could unzip the dress, but getting it off her would take time he wasn't willing to miss out on. Instead he slowly slid the strap of her dress down her arm, kissing every inch of the paler skin revealed.

He cupped her breast, feeling its jut in his hand before lowering his head and closing his mouth around it. She arched into him, and he slid his hands behind her back so that she couldn't slip away. He knew he should loosen the grip, that there would be purple prints of the pads of his fingers on her skin tomorrow, but he had been too close to death too many times and definitely without her for too long to worry about that when she didn't seem to want to leave his arms.

There was a proper place and a proper time for this, he somehow managed to think, and nothing about their current purlieus made that list. Not someone else's house, as though they were still fugitives in hiding, and definitely not the bathroom, as if this was something so sordid it needed to be drowned in water.

And it certainly should not take place _now_ , when he still hadn't held her face in his hands enough and kissed away the years they had been apart. So much more she still needed to hear before he could claim her like this, presumptuous enough to believe it was a prerogative of his.

But then her knees spread and his hands, desperate to touch her in all the ways denied to him in the colds of their separation, were on her thighs, too high up to conceal his want, yet somehow so innocuous in their intimacy. Her legs enveloped his hips and her ankles were clasped together, leaving him no other path but the one leading to her. Somewhere in the back of his mind he couldn't remember whether the door was locked, but her fingers undid the buttons of his shirt, one after another until her hands were too low for any misconception. He leaned his chin on her shoulder as her hands undid his belt before he felt them around him. It wasn't enough for either of them.

He grabbed the hem of her dress and tugged it upwards until it was gathered above her hips. He pulled the underwear off her, and all the shoulds and nobleness he had thought he possessed evanesced when they silenced their moans in a kiss.

The deeper he moved in her, the more their kiss deepened, but the faster they moved, the more their rhythm fell apart and the more often their kiss broke. His forehead fell into the hollow of her collarbone and he closed his eyes, for just a sight of her could push him over the edge and he didn't want it to end, not now when there was finally nothing between them anymore.

When he dared to look at her again, it didn't seem like it was a struggle for her to hold back, to not chase the high with all her might. Her eyes were shut, lips barely parted, and unlike his chest, hers wasn't rising and falling in an avaricious need. She was still, and the wet under her eyelids wasn't just sweat.

He realized that her hands did nothing more than rested on his shoulders while his clung to her, still remembering all too well how rapidly he had once lost her. He forced them off her, and the cool of the vanity, the sight of her in this place brought back the self-loathing that had been his loyal companion for years.

_It wasn't supposed to be like this._

"Don't," she whispered after he moved back, almost completely out of her. Her arms reaffirmed their hold of him. One of her hands cupped the back of his head, and he closed his eyes as her lips found his again. The kisses they exchanged were chaste, interrupted by pads of her fingers tried to wipe off the lipstick she had left on and around his mouth.

Leaning her forehead on his, she shifted her hips until she felt all of him in her again. Their bodies were in perfect sync, yet again out of the rhythm he wanted to give her. He slid his hand between them and she moved against his caress. He tried to breathe through it but was losing the battle as he felt her tightening around him, felt the touch of her hands that still retained the gentleness his had lost, the hotness of her breath giving away that her want was as urgent as his. He gave her all he had, and as they clung to each other, he wished he had more even though it seemed to be enough for her, at least today.

His breathing hadn't yet calmed when she got out of his arms. She pulled the strap of the dress back up, concealing the places his lips had ignited. His hands were on the vanity again, supporting his weight, and unlike her, he couldn't face his reflection in the mirror. From the corner of his eyes he watched her tuck the tresses back behind her ears, even though they ended back in free fall by the side of her face as soon as she turned her head. A blush rested on her cheeks, and her fingers that ran over it couldn't take it away.

She reached for a hand towel and wetted it. It wasn't for her, though. A hand on his shoulder prompted him to turn to her, and she wiped the remnants of the lipstick off his face. He knew he should say something, namely the words whose euphemisms he had been uttering since she had seen the tattoo, but he couldn't raise his eyes to hers. But he couldn't lay them anywhere else either, not on the lips whose taste was still on his tongue, not on the chest he had given insufficient attention to. He settled on buttoning his shirt back up, like he was a fucking teenager.

Her fingers didn't slide under his chin to tilt it upwards, and neither did her eyes loom on his, imploring him to look at her. She leaned closer to his shoulder, but she wasn't seeking an embrace. She kissed him right above the heart, and he hoped she heard it leap, for he couldn't put in words. Maybe she heard nothing, or perhaps indulged in the sound; her lips lingered long enough for a breath to hitch in his throat.

His breathing wasn't intact until she put the towel back down and walked toward the door. With a hand on the knob she paused, and he wondered whether her knees felt as unsteady as his. If she was giving him another chance, more space to say something, he pretended not to realize it. He watched her leave the room and listened to the fading sound of her steps.

* * *

The sunlight was running low by the time they stopped at the store on their drive home. Sara had said they needed milk for the morning, but they both knew there was something else they had to get. If he was a better man, he would go with her, for it was their problem, and he detested the idea of her believing he thought otherwise. But that would require acknowledging their encounter, and he still had no idea how to say he regretted it while at the same time not being sorry in the slightest. So he just sat behind the wheel, slouched forward as though it mitigated his shortcomings, and watched her figure disappear in the distance.

Even Lincoln sensed something was off.

"What the fuck are you doing, Michael?" he asked.

"Watch your language, Linc," Michael said, even though his son was fast asleep in his booster seat, tired from running around all day and meeting new sets of uncles and aunts and cousins. The map with which he was tracing their drive home had slid out of his tiny hands, now only a crumpled heap by his legs.

Lincoln had always been a definition of tough love, but recently something – or, rather, someone – had induced a change in him. Just months ago he would yell and berate and achieve the absolute opposite of what he wanted; now he rubbed his head, his eyes vaguely focused on cars entering and leaving the parking lot.

"I have never given you much of a reason to look up to me, Michael," he said. "But I have screwed these things up more times than I can count. And fuck, am I screwing it up again. And I know that you two have been through a lot of shit. But you guys have now and the future. And that fucking outweighs the past, you know?"

Michael looked away from his brother the second Lincoln turned in the passenger seat to face him.

"Look, man, why don't I take Bryce for a few days? And you guys can go somewhere, talk, be with each other. I mean, it has never been just the two of you, you know? You can't be just parents. Or maybe just for one night. Take her out for a dinner, something."

It was a change Michael definitely liked and appreciated, but right now, he couldn't do much more than tap his fingers on the wheel. Lincoln inevitably took it personally.

"And now you'll remind me that I'm still staying at my son's."

"No," Michael smiled, forcing his eyes to focus on his brother. "Thank you."

Then he remembered the realization he had earlier in the day. If the two of them finally started being honest with each other and he wanted it to stay that way, then there was no incentive to leave it unspoken.

"Linc, there is something you need to know about Abigail," he started. He didn't get to tell him, though, as Sara returned before he could continue.

"I got the milk," she said, and when their eyes met in the rearview mirror, they both knew the shopping bag in her hands carried a weight much greater than that of a carton of milk.

**END OF PART TWO**

* * *


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all,  
> thank you for reading <3 I hope that means you like the story, hehe.  
> As always, you can always get in touch with any questions, comments, or if you just wanna chat, either here or on tumblr (link in bio/same username)  
> Anyway, I hope you will like this. Please please review.
> 
> much love, winter.

 

After the story reached its closing line and their son was tucked in, his eyes no longer fearing the challenge of sleeping by himself, Sara headed left toward the bathroom, like every evening, and Michael was to retreat to his office, for the first time since he wasn't alone anymore. If her steps were hasty, his were hesitant in question, an invite she disregarded.

She felt ridiculous about it as soon as the bathroom door closed. Taking off her clothes did nothing to shed her of the feeling, and once again it failed to escape her just how perfectly two people would fit in the shower cabin. She adjusted the temperature of the running water, but regardless of the effort, it was as scorching as the strip of fading sun that had fallen upon Sucre's backyard when her heart still beat in the rhythm they had shared and she could still enumerate the places his lips had kissed.

He had rushed out after her as inconspicuously as being surrounded by people allowed him. Sucre played music loud and one practically had to scream to be heard, but it couldn't eclipse his steps nearing. They had always had a way of erasing the reality, so egocentrically only seeing, feeling, falling for each other. She shut her eyes as he stood behind her, close enough for her to know that his bloodstream still raved as well. How she managed not to turn on her heels and crash her body into his, was a mystery to her, especially when his hand slipped into hers.

He leaned closer and his breath, heavy with the consequences of their tryst while she was breathless in elation, was on her skin.

"Sara, we didn't use…" he started, because of course that would be the thing he would focus on. God forbid he would kiss the hollow behind her ear or gaze at her with the insinuation that would make her want to leave the party early and find a way to get Lincoln off their couch as soon as their son succumbed to slumber. But that was Michael Scofield for you, following his own moral code that didn't give anyone else a say and gave him absolutely no pleasure everyone else would take for granted. Maybe she was still too much in love to call him out for it. Maybe she just wasn't used to always being unconditionally put first, even and especially when all she wanted was to hold his hand. And she definitely should be more alarmed that they were talking about this, again.

"I know," her head jerked toward him, stopping just before her cheek could touch his lips. She watched them shudder, then walked away before he could speak the words she knew beleaguered him.

Now the little pharmacy bag with the pill was next to the sink. It wasn't that she was thinking of not taking it, but she had the identical intent once before and right answers had always been an abstract concept with Michael Scofield. If she was to recount, the first right thing to do would have been to tell Bellick about a prisoner crawling around the ceiling and knowing his way around Fox River. And the absolute wrong would have been to keep the door closed and send a convicted murderer to his death.

Things had never been simple with the two of them, escaping prisons with the other's help and running from bullets together, yet something as natural as talking seemed to be the one insurmountable thing. But since they had gotten so good at pulling off the impossible, she wiped the tears that slipped from her eyes.

Her steps stilled when the door of his office came in sight. He left it too open to call it ajar, yet it was closed just enough to give her an excuse not to enter. She didn't take it.

Who knew how far she had still been from the office when he first heard her approaching. His eyes awaited her, though he kept them too low for their gazes to meet. Still in the shirt she had creased between her fingers just hours earlier, he was sitting in his desk chair, whose blackness inevitably sent shivers down her spine just thinking of subfusc days he had greeted in this room, before.

Even though he was leaning back, his shoulders were in perfect posture. The elbows were placed on armrests, the hands joined together with the pads of his fingers. There had never been a need to put an additional chair in the office, so now she had no other option but perch on the desk, on its very edge, hoping the distance she put between them didn't reverberate in his mind. Still avoiding his eyes, she glanced at the blueprint that was laid out on the desk. The newest notes he had made the night she and Bryce were flying to him, unbeknownst to him.

"Are you sorry about what happened today?" she asked, her eyes still on the shapes drawn with painstaking precision that was the answer Lincoln had refused to give her.

His hand moved closer to hers. If until now there had always been an apparent excuse to ignore his attempt, this time it was impossible for her to turn away without implications. To assure him that putting distance between them, the one worse than the physical one, was the furthest thing from her mind, she covered his hand with hers and squeezed it. Relief permeated his sigh, and not for the first time she wondered why it was like this, all the time, when what she wanted was to be in his arms, always.

"For making love to you, no. I'll never be sorry for that," he responded. He tilted his head to the side and the pad of his thumb caressed her knuckles with gentleness that remained intact as the days passed. "I just wish it didn't happen like that."

"How has always been a bit of a problem for us," she laughed, but he didn't laugh with her. She finally dared to raise her eyes to the face that could be so damn unreadable. He didn't meet them; he still watched their hands that made it look so easy, being with each other, every touch feeling like home, as though no time had dwindled.

"Why is this so difficult?" she asked. "I mean… I'm here. You're here. And it's like there's a whole new set of bars between us."

Something about her words incited a smile. His hand slowly slid away from hers, though he let it linger as he pondered on the response. Then he got up, and there were only a few feet between them, but the seconds it took him to cover them felt like slow motion. When he finally stood in front of her and their gazes met, the softness and love she saw took her breath away. He leaned closer, his eyes still on hers, and his hands cupped her face.

"It's not difficult," he told her as his fingertips delicately traced her hairline, her jaw, ran through her dampen hair. She wondered if he could discern the path the few tears had taken before she quelled them. "It has just never been like this before. We have the time we have always wanted. And it is not a maybe anymore. It is, and it is now."

His hands left her face as she placed her arms on his shoulders, the insides of her wrists embracing the nape of his neck. His hands slid lower, too fast for their touch to linger in innuendo. He tried to hide it by settling his eyes on hers, once again slipping into their old habits of conveying more with silence than in sound. Not for a second did she think it was by accident that the position of his hands on her hips matched the one they had claimed hours earlier.

"If you're looking for any bruises, there aren't any," she told him, pressing into his examining touch in case he didn't believe her words. "And even if there were, I wouldn't care."

His hands left her immediately, and the love in his eyes turned into spite of which she wasn't the target. He braced himself against the desk, and from the way his mouth opened and closed as he breathed, one would never guess it was their lovemaking that he was remembering.

"Hey," she placed a hand on his shoulder to make him focus on her again. "I wanted it as much as you did."

It didn't placate him. He looked at her hand, and for a horrifying second, she thought he would move away from her touch. She knew better than to exile the fear when the muscles under her hand just tensed.

"I can't treat you like that, Sara."

"Like what? Like you love me?"

He didn't appreciate her interpretation, so undeniable in her eyes and absolutely false in his. She didn't need him to raise his eyes to hers, with the reprimand that could never really keep the warmth at bay when it was aimed at her. Cold pierced through her when he finally opted for taking a step away from her. His back was once again perfectly straight and his hands slid in the pockets of his trousers. As he kept his eyes on hers with resolution that was in perfect sync with the rawness of the expression ensconced on his face, she could easily believe they were back in Fox River and he came to tell her he was breaking his brother out. Regardless of the time passed and things changed, it too often felt they were still in that place, in that room, fooling the world and themselves.

He had once promised to never lie to her again. Maybe now they would finally start being honest with each other.

"You spoke to Lincoln today," he said.

"He told me about the video."

She could see it was an answer he didn't expect. The distress it caused was even clearer. He pinched his eyes shut and bowed his head as though the burden had only multiplied, just like the conjectures and their horror the scarcity of Lincoln's words had left her with.

"You shouldn't…" his response of course again focused on her, and she'd sigh with disappointment if the frustration didn't win.

"Would you rather I didn't know?" she countered, and an answer would be redundant. Maybe that was why he didn't bother with it.

"Sara. There is something I need to tell you," he started again. "Last year, I was with someone."

When her lips parted in relief that it was this, just _this_ perturbing him, he inevitably thought the worst of it.

"I had to try," he said, and even though his eyes were still intent on her, it was himself that he was convincing. "You need to know, Sara, if I had known, I would have never…"

"Has Bryce told you how we found out about you?"

The calm of her voice was in stark contrast with the urgency in his, and just like she knew it would, it brought his focus back to her. In the end he just couldn't help himself, always putting her first.

"No."

"You were on the news," she said, and the memory of him, so unchanged from the images she had obstinately clung to for six years brought a smile to her face. She skipped that part when she thought he had never cared and how she wanted to forget him with a needle in her arm and the number of dishes she broke, wishing it was the sound of his bones cracking. "You won an award. The Engineer of the Year."

"You saw me…" he wouldn't be Michael Scofield if he didn't draw conclusions.

"I'm not telling you this to give you one more thing to obsess over, Michael," she stopped him before he could ask questions whose answers would do neither of them any good tonight. "You did the right thing, moving on. I'm glad you tried. And I would have been just as glad if it had worked out."

Something about her mien must have convinced him she meant it. Maybe he pretended for her sake. Tension left his shoulders, albeit still torturously slowly, and he nodded, suddenly looking tired. His eyes rested on the wall covered with blueprints, and she wondered which of them, if any, had been the one he had drawn without knowing he was guiding her back to him.

"I have something for you," he then said, and the width of his smile was definitely for her. His eyes were on hers just long enough to spot the surprise that raised her eyebrows. He turned and she didn't hate the sight of his back any less. Opening the top drawer, he took something out, something that seemed to have awaited his hand. She craned her neck, tilted her head, but he made sure to keep hidden whatever he was holding until he was ready to show it to her.

"For all the occasions we have missed," he finally said, his eyes shy and the origami between his fingers.

It was the rose he had given her for her birthday, just bigger. The blossom was redder and the stem was greener. The paper was more expensive looking but folded with the same care, same precision that had elicited a smile that day, against all odds. If he had watched her reaction stealthily, over his shoulder as the guard placed the handcuffs back around his wrists, tonight his heart swelled with repose as her hand reached for the rose and held it as though it was the most precious thing in the world. She neared it to her face, just like she had the one she still kept, before she raised her eyes to his with such intensity, such clarity that it would knock him back a step if he didn't feel the same way.

"I love you," she said.

If it had taken him six years to tell her how beautiful she was, this was the first time she said what all her actions had made irrefutable. He had known it, of course, when he let himself admit it amidst the debilitating guilt. It had been her hands that tended to him with misplaced care; the lips that caressed his when hatred should have been leaving them. And now, when somehow they found their way back to each other without crossing over to the other side, it was indisputable. There was the crane she kept as if it could still lead her to him, but nothing could speak louder than their boy. Whenever Bryce looked at him, there was love in his eyes, the love he could have only gotten from Sara. She could have erased him, so easily, but she kept him alive without the hope of ever seeing him, again. She could have built a life for herself, for their boy, and it would be a better one without him in it, but she sternly kept his place at the table, as though he had ever done anything to deserve it.

"I love you too, Sara," he whispered, and she was already in his arms. Her head was nestled just above his heart, right where he loved her to be the most. He felt one of her hands on his shoulder blade, while the other was still holding the rose, and he knew she would never let it go, just like she hadn't the first one. He cupped her nape, his fingertips like always getting lost among the strands of her hair, and whether he wanted to count it or not, he couldn't believe this was barely the second time he got to hold her like this.

Much later, after they had made their way to bed and she put the rose on the nightstand to free her hand for holding him, he asked her if she wanted to make love. She nodded in acquiescence to the question he would never again pose with doubt in his voice. She rolled off his chest and onto her back to feel his weight on her, so encapsulating in its lightness. They kissed, they touched, they moved, this time as slowly as the years that had denied them each other allowed them, and tomorrow slowly turned into their today.

* * *

After a couple of weeks, they had been together long enough for a routine to develop.

He fought with his intellect and his hands, and his lips fought on both fronts, when Sara told him he should go back to work. He had enough money and even more reasons to spend every morning making breakfast for his family, never go an hour without wrapping his arms around them. But when she pointed out that they couldn't go on pretending this was a vacation, the idea of them being there when he came home, day after day, was just as mesmerizing.

And thus reality slowly started claiming its place in their cocoon.

If she could sleep through the morning with ease, the nights had always been a challenge to get through without startling awake. Most of the time it wasn't a nightmare that woke her, but rather an empty darkness, and it matched what she woke up next to. Her arms reached for a body that wasn't lying next to her, and the cool of his side of the bed felt so much like the years without him that it brought tears to her eyes.

She reached out for the clothes scattered around the bed, putting on whatever covered her most. He didn't have a specific place where he waited for his eyelids to entertain the idea of sleep again. Some nights she found him in the kitchen, an untouched glass of water in front of him; others he was in his office, the blueprints bereft of attention. If he was in the living room, the television was never on. Whatever kept his slumber away dissipated the moment he saw her. He held her hands between his as though she was the one waking in cold, and she sat on his lap to be the only thing in his sight. She asked what kept him up, ran a soothing hand over his scalp, kissed the stubble on his chin, and he relished in her touch, with his eyes shut and a smile that relaxed his tense lips. No one would pick him as the perturbed one, so well he hid his demons when his angel was in his arms.

Her fingers traced the deepened lines of his face as she begged him to talk to her, and he insisted he was fine so patiently and calmly that it had to be a lie. When he realized she wouldn't believe his words, he let his hands talk. The pads of his fingers caressed her chin, her nose, the cheeks, the worry on her forehead, every touch followed by his lips. He paused at the invisible line on her neck that thanks to his inescapable attention she too had begun seeing, then lowered his hands to continue loving her. Some nights she stood her ground; most of the time, though, he carried her to their bedroom, and with the sheets crumpled by their feet, she let him finish what he had started, for she needed it as badly as he did.

She asked him to wake her in the mornings before he left for work, but he didn't need an alarm to go off and usually she woke up to nothing but empty sheets, save for the little origami crane he always placed on his pillow to watch over her.

It didn't happen often, but sometimes she was the first to wake up. As tempting as the idea of cuddling up to him was, kissing him awake won over.

"What time is it?" he would ask, his eyelids still closed under the weight of sleep, his arms already reaching to pull her closer.

"Almost five," she would say. Neither of them reached for the light switch, but their lips found what they wanted nevertheless. They pulled off the clothes they had bothered putting back on just hours earlier, and their hands reveled in the aimless roaming that effortlessly pleased and teased. His fingers followed the curve of her spine lightly, teasingly, until it got the best of him as well. The rhythm she set rocked them both fully awake, and as she kissed him, her hair fell down the sides of her face, sprawling across his shoulders to shield them from the world.

"Slower," he said, his hands on her hips to still them.

"Michael Scofield actually asking for something?" she chuckled, nonetheless complying. He let her kiss him from his mouth and down his chin, making her think she would actually get her way with him this time. But he used the hold he had of her hips and rolled them over, his hand cupping the back of her head to absorb the impact.

He moved out of her, and unlike her, he didn't seem to mind at all. She was about to chide him for it, and he knew it, covering her mouth with his. The deeper he kissed her, the closer his fingers got to where she wanted him. They caressed and teased and satiated the spot he found without guidance. He left her gasping as his mouth moved down her body.

She slid her hands down his stomach, and he couldn't conceal that it was making him as breathless as she already was. He rested his cheek on her chest and the pad of his thumb massaged the underside of her breast as her hand strived to make him feel as good as his had already made her. She touched him in the rhythm that matched the one his fingers initiated, and for a few seconds, sybaritically long and torturously short seconds, she again thought he would let her.

"Don't."

His eyes were still closed when fingers of his free hand wrapped around her wrist and he gently pulled her hand away. He didn't let her touch him anywhere below his shoulders, because Michael Scofield never played fair; not as far as his plans were concerned, the masterpieces no one could spot, much less understand at the first umpteen glances, and he definitely wasn't fair in bed. In her opinion, at least, but he made it impossible to argue, knowing just when to lighten his caress to draw it out before making her arch into him and how to position his hips to knock any rational thought out of her, again.

Later, as the first ray of the waking sun joined them and his hand ran lazy circles across her back, she watched the dark circles under his eyes that marred his beatific face.

"You're not getting enough sleep," she said.

"You're right. Maybe sex should be the first thing to go," he smirked, even though he knew she meant it.

To prove his point, he pulled her from the bed, covering her mouth with his hand to stifle a shriek, and lifted her, again without asking for permission he knew would always have. With her arms around his neck, he carried her to their bathroom. Her feet touched the cold tiles and he flicked the light switch. If it blinded her for a second, he was completely mesmerized by the sight of her, like he hadn't studied every inch of her skin in detail just minutes ago.

His kiss relented only to turn on the water; then they were in the shower cabin, their bodies pressed together, the steam enveloping them. She should have known better, _they_ should know better than substituting words with sex, she thought, but his hands were in all the right places, again, and whatever words of reason she had mulled over didn't materialize, again. Later she pondered if he knew and kept it up on purpose.

"We'll fall," she laughed, and if she said it early enough, he acquiesced, and she soon wondered why they would even need anything but their hands.

"We won't," he assured her other times, and after years of broken promises it was a good one to keep. Her back was against the tiles and his hand caressed the insides of her thighs, just in case she still doubted him. He hooked her legs around his hips, taking on both of their weights, then moved closer, deeper. The cool of the tiles mixed with the warmth of the body she clung to, digging her fingertips in the skin of his back, sometimes forgetting about the patch that was redder and uninked. Neither bothered turning the showerhead away from them and the water now irritated her eyes. She closed them and not seeing him only augmented the feel of him. The steam made sure that her lungs seemed on fire, just like the rest of her, and the insistent movements of his hips continuously burdened her breathing.

And god, was she so easy to read, for his hands were sliding over her slippery skin with just the right amount of pressure. She came fast, so fast it would put a smirk on any other man's face. His head fell onto her shoulder as she throbbed around him and he stayed until her body felt limp. He told her he loved her, and she definitely should know better than believe a word a man said when she was naked in his arms, but this man was the only exception.

As he was getting dressed, she made him coffee in the kitchen. His tie was still undone when he hurried after her for just a few more stolen moments. He poured the coffee into the thermos, even though she wouldn't mind tasting it when he inevitably leaned closer and kissed her, chastely and carefully at first. Just as he had to leave, he suddenly deepened the kiss. The arm he had wrapped around her caught her in case her wobbly knees gave way.

"Tell me to call in sick," he said and laughed as she pushed him toward the door.

Some mornings she managed to let it all go in slumber until her son cuddled up next to her. If it happened to rain, they left the window ajar and listened to the dance of raindrops, as though it was just another lazy Sunday in Lille. When they could keep their eyes open without their eyelids aching, they made a short video message for Michael, just the two of them smiling and wishing him a good day (of course he had gotten her a new phone. "I plan on calling you a lot, so please let me get a say?" was his response to her objections). Even if he was getting ready for a meeting or already in the middle of one, he always called back almost immediately, never failing to tell them he loved them. Afterward, they texted back and forth until he came home, which was always sooner rather than later.

Most mornings, though, she couldn't place her limbs in a soothing position. She pulled Michael's pillow closer, laying her head on it and nestling it in her arms. She closed her eyes to let her other senses convince her he was there; all she got out of it was wondering what it had been like for him, alone in this bed for years, waiting for the morning to chase the torment of her, provided she ever left his mind at all.

While the sun was barely rising in New York, the morning had already passed in Lille, so she relented and called her other home. Selena downplayed her summer days in order to learn more about the uncle she hadn't known she had. Geraldine had had to hire a substitute doctor and refused to listen to Sara's apologies. She followed her patients' progress, but as the days sprawled into weeks, the smaller the numbers of those still in care became. Karim's family went to live with a relative, but Geraldine had the address and encouraged Bryce to exchange letters with his friend. Life in Lille went on, Sara mused, each day bringing a change that rendered a life she had thought would be forever her own increasingly unrecognizable.

Lincoln now worked for C-Note's company, again, but Sara wondered just how much he actually got done since he stopped by during breakfast every other day. She begged him to cut down on the pastry he brought without fail, for she still tried to ingrain healthy eating habits in her son and an overload of sugar first thing in the morning wasn't one of them. Lincoln didn't really listen, obviously. Sugar had been an important component in his breakfasts his entire life and he never thought of his nutrition as unhealthy.

"But potatoes are vegetables," he was perplexed one evening when she served celery root mash instead of mashed potatoes. His brother shot him a disapproving look, but Michael had been brought up on the unhealthy food, or whatever they were to fucking call it, and had absolutely always considered potatoes to be vegetables. But these days he'd claim black was glitter if Sara thought so, Lincoln smirked in silence.

Most mornings they talked, Sara and Lincoln, when they were sure Bryce was too immersed in writing postcards or reading to overhear them. He told her about Aldo, the Company, his brother's plans, those that worked and especially about those that failed. It was just fragments, for he wasn't much of a talker, not even when he liked the topic discussed. As frustrating as it was, hearing about Michael's darkest days from Lincoln, at least a bit of the fog in her mind was clearing.

Even though they were now in New York, Sara and Bryce retained some of their habits from Lille. They visited all the markets nearby to find their new favorite one. In thrift shops they found some records they had listened to in France and bought some they didn't yet know. And they went to the park, of course, and after a couple of weeks of feeling all the eyes on her, Sara had a group of other moms to chat with and Bryce knew the names of all the kids that came to the playground regularly.

And most days, as she was sitting on the picnic blanket they had bought on their first morning as a family, she heard the steps he didn't bother to conceal nearing. He placed his hands on her shoulders as gently as only he could, then sat down behind her and she leaned onto his chest. His arms circled around her waist, pulling her closer, and he tilted his head to kiss her temple, so delicately that it rudely messed up her heartbeat.

"Skipping work again?" she laughed, and both of their eyes traveled to their son. He sat on the swings, playing cards with the boy he had befriended.

"I missed you," he said the words that would never be a platitude for him.

"Just so you know, I haven't yet started on dinner," she said, and he leaned closer to kiss the corner of her lips. She would kiss him back if she wasn't preoccupied with smiling, and he didn't mind, for his mouth lost the battle as well. They chuckled together under the early afternoon sun, and he nestled his cheek against hers, running his fingers through her hair. Never did he seem to be able to resist the gesture, not when they just sat with or without any space between them, nor when he was in her and so many other parts of her ached for his attention. It was one of the questions she had dared to ask one night.

"You often wore your hair down in Fox River," he had told her with a smile he wore when he didn't hide his remembrances. "When I kissed you. When we met, too. And while I could touch you those few times, your hair…. it always seemed too personal."

"I am thinking of dyeing it," she now said the first of the things she had been pondering on lately.

Before he could decide how he felt about it, a mom Sara had become acquainted with walked up to them. She was one of those moms that were the first to spot and practically interrogate any newcomers to ensure the kids' safety as well as satisfy her own curiosity. Sara liked her because besides knowing all the parents, she also had an opinion about all the schools in the vicinity and knew which stores offered the best deals.

"Mr. and Mrs. Scofield," she greeted them with an accent of a lifelong New Yorker. If there was anything else she had noticed about Michael, in addition to this being his first time at this playground, she hid it marvelously. "Nice to finally put a face to a name, Mr. Scofield. I'm Deena."

"Michael, please," he smiled, and Sara wondered if it dismayed him to move his arm off her to shake Deena's hand as much as it made her feel incomplete.

"I'm Jake's mom," she pointed to the boy who sat with their son. "So nice of you to spend an afternoon with your family. I barely see my husband before dinner. He's an investment banker."

"He doesn't know what he is missing," Michael said, tightening his arms around Sara. Deena either didn't care or notice, as she was just about to suggest what Michael presumed was a play date when her shoulders slumped at the sight of the sandpit.

"I'm sorry, my daughter is about to eat sand right now," she said and rushed to save the sandy cupcakes from her daughter's experimental hands.

They both watched her walked out of earshot, though Michael leaned so close to her than Deena could be standing right in front of them and yet the whisper would be only for her.

"Mrs. Scofield, huh?"

"She assumed," she shrugged in her trivial defense, and one didn't need to be as observant as Michael to spot the blush besieging her cheeks. "And, um, I didn't exactly clarify."

He didn't mind it at all, of course, the small piece of misinformation that was so potent in what it suggested.

While his right arm remained enveloped around her waist, the palm of his left hand slid down her forearm, for once disregarding the mark in the crook of her elbow that had once almost taken her when she thought he didn't want her. The pad of his thumb brushed her knuckles and it felt like they had skipped all the usual steps and went directly to the honeymoon phase.

"I'm glad you didn't," he said.

His thumb came to a stop on her ring finger, right where he hoped there would soon be a ring that shone like her eyes, then a band that would match his own. She rested her head on his, an answer to a question that didn't need to be asked.

It took Bryce unusually long to notice his father sitting with his mom. When he finally did, he just stared for a moment, as though unsure whether to feel happy or cheated that no one had alerted him. He had been a bit scared when his parents told him dad was going back to work and it would be just him and mom in the mornings. He didn't know many dads, but the ones he did all worked and rarely came home when the sun was still up. So on the first day, he counted hours, checking the time as he and mom were getting produce for dinner and decorative pillows to give color to the living room. It was barely past noon and he thought he hadn't yet made it to the middle of his wait when dad walked in, not only in time for dinner but early enough to help him and mom make lunch. He didn't catch up on work in the evening either, reading the bedtime story until Bryce fell asleep at the sound of dad's voice. It happened every day, and even though mom berated dad for it, Bryce knew it made her happy.

His parents waved at him in greeting, but waving back was out of the question for Bryce. He hurriedly mumbled something to Jake before running toward them, straight into his father's arms, like every chance he got. Sara doubted she would ever become inured to the sight, just like Michael still didn't seem to completely grasp the fact they had a little boy. His eyes found hers, still in disbelief, still seeking to share the elation.

"I see you have a friend," Michael said to their son.

"That's Jake. He knows so much about cards. And," his voice dropped to a confidential whisper, "he has three brothers and sisters."

"Interesting bit. About the siblings, I mean," Michael said later after they had convinced their son to go play with Jake some more.

"Nah, he's just used to it. He grew up around large families," she said, but as per usual, Michael wasn't interested about the past. For a change, despite all the objections, she didn't mind one bit.

"Do you want more kids?" he asked. He tried to keep his voice neutral, but his eyes gave away the answer he hoped for.

"Yeah, I do," she said, remembering all the little girls that had sat on her knees as she plaited their hair, wishing she would get to brush it before tucking them in for the night. "I always have."

"Then we'll make more babies," he said, somehow managing to pull her even closer and keeping his face from erupting in a smile. "As many as you want."

"As many as _I_ want?" she laughed. "You don't get a say?"

"Well," he started, his eyes checking on their son as he searched for a proper comeback. She chortled, even though he hadn't yet spoken. "Sucre has three. But they are all girls. And since a boy must be for two girls…"

"Keep dreaming, Scofield."

"A lot of them," he said, the smirk long gone when he kissed her temple. "I want a lot of them."

"We always do this," she told him, stroking his cheek. The unscarred skin almost tricked her into believing their past had glistened as brightly as the future she once again had in the palm of her hand. "We always plan out our life before we are actually together."

He intercepted her hand, as though to keep her from dwelling on what had faded, and kissed the exact same spot his thumb had caressed.

"This time it's forever," he promised.

"We should wait a few months, though. Get used to each other first," she said. And talk, she silently added. God, here they were, practically choosing furniture for the baby room, yet pretended that parts of the night not spent making love didn't exist. But she didn't say it, of course. Sometimes, like right now when she was in his arms, she could almost believe it didn't really matter, the things that had happened before their son had run to him for the first time. "To the three of us."

When he kissed her lips, for the first time that afternoon, he might as well say that he knew what she meant.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all,
> 
> thanks for reading <3
> 
> This chapter is I guess a bit meh. It consists of two parts; I thought about posting each separately, but I think they fit together quite nicely, both dealing with the past and its consequences. The thing is, I have written myself into a cute corner with the first part of the fic, haha. I didn't really want to spend forever resolving those storylines, so I tried to end them in the first part of this chapter. I am pretty sure most of you aren't interested in them anyway :) The second part is more MiSa focused. They are still tiptoeing around the past, so in this chapter they are kind of forced to start dealing with it. That will pretty much be the main theme of the remaining chapters.
> 
> I now have only three chapters to write (yaay); the next one will be a "regular" one, then a two-part finale. Just so you know. All MiSa focused, hehe.
> 
> Anyway. I don't really have time to be up all night writing anymore, so it may take me a while to update.
> 
> I hope you like this, and review maybe? :) really, sometimes i wonder how many of the views are bots.
> 
> hopefully the autumn is treating you nice,
> 
> much love, winter.

**Part One**

 

Paul Kellerman was a man who spoke the loudest when times were at their most dire, and in the weeks since Sara Tancredi had magically reappeared in the land of the living, he was talking non-stop, greeting and reminiscing until his throat went dry. He called up every high ranking official with whom he had ever exchanged a word, the few lawyers he could trust and a bunch of famously untrustworthy ones. Everyone in the greater DC area was reminded of his heroism during the war and how his testimony helped bring the Company to the ground.

There was a gun in the top drawer of his desk at work. Whenever there was a knock on the door, his nails dug into his palms as he resisted the urge to test the fate for the third time. So each time he just coughed away the dread and sounded as buoyant as ever when inviting the visitor to enter. It was never the person he expected, and days turned into weeks as he sat anxiously by. In his defense, he had never called himself a hero of any kind; it was a label given to him by his superiors in the army, then the media after the fall of the Company. It wasn't that he was a coward, no; it was just that somehow, self-preservation had always walked hand in hand with heroism when he was around. Not that he would ever admit it to anyone, but when Scofield had set out to destroy the Company at whatever cost, spilling secrets just seemed safer than sticking with his former employers.

He knew better than to feel safer with each passing day, and maybe he was dumber with every day he allowed to pass with his mouth firmly shut. When his daughter finally admitted to herself that he was as deadbeat of a father as practically their whole relationship indelibly indicated, it was past eleven and he was in the middle of making himself a late dinner.

Before she had been transferred to the Northwest, he cooked for them every Thursday; once they were a better part of a continent apart, they skipped dinner and talked during their favorite shows, commenting on the slightest detail. Now she was back on the East Coast, and if she waited another forty minutes, this would be the third Thursday in the row going by without a call. He had three weeks' worth of opportunities to see her, as a father and a former Company operative, yet hadn't taken a single one, because Paul Kellerman's words always spoke louder than his actions.

There was no reflection of red and blue lights on the walls of the living room, and no sirens under his window announced the arrival of belated justice. No one yelled his name and ordered him to open the door. If the bell wasn't reverberating in his head, it would be like it had never rung at all. It really was a perfect opportunity for him to do what he did best – bail. Maybe she was testing him. Maybe he passed when he opened the door. Perhaps regardless of its backdrop, it was a heroic thing to do.

"Abigail," he greeted her.

She watched him with the same spite her mother had when he still made the effort to drop in his toddling daughter's life. He had stopped the second time Abigail stared at him, completely oblivious to the fact he was her father. It had been a handy excuse for a man who changed his name with every assignment that landed on his desk.

"Dad," she said, but the voice gave away that of all the names she would like to call him right now, a father was be very, very low on the list. On her drive over, she wondered whether he would greet her with a plea or a blatant ignorance of what they both knew. Now she realized that either she would meet with equal disappointment.

She was pretty sure that he would give her no incentive to stay, thus she didn't bother walking in. He must have just taken a blueberry pie out of the oven, for its smell lingered around them. Once upon what felt like a million years ago, it was the scent of an effort she had been slowly starting to have faith in. Now she knew better than to think he actually wanted his last dirty secret to come knocking on his door.

"So, um, how's Sara? And… Bryce, right?" he asked, apparently opting for some kind of a middle option where she was supposed to believe he followed the case merely by overhearing the chatter of his coworkers.

"Oh, they're good. Bryce can't stop talking about the plane. Because, you know, nothing says _sorry I left you to drown_ better than _hey, here's a luxurious jet to take you home_."

At least he didn't try to deny it, she had to give him that. A couple of days ago, it might actually still make a difference. But now when it was finally obvious that he was the exact kind of father she had strived to convince herself he wasn't, she did nothing to stop her eyes from rolling when his defense mode turned up the volume.

_She never let me see you. It was safer for you that no one knew I had a daughter._

"It was dark times, Abigail. You wouldn't understand," he said.

She did, though, finally.

"You know what I could never understand? Why they gave me the case. Scofield/Burrows, the case of the century. And they gave it to me. And I barely passed the training. But it wasn't _them_ ; it was you. I mean, we don't have the same name and practically no one knows you have a daughter, so it didn't take you much explaining."

She didn't let him tell her that her existence was no longer a secret. Well, technically it never had been, because for something to be a secret, you must deliberately avoid talking about it. For decades of missed birthday parties and recitals he wasn't there to record, his lack of any care whatsoever had rendered avoidance immaterial.

"I know the terms your affidavit, you know. Full pardon in exchange for your testimony against the Company. But if at any point it came up that you withheld something, you could go join Krantz in a heartbeat. And dad, abducting and torturing a governor's daughter… that's a big one. But she was dead anyway so the chances of anybody ever finding out about that were slim. I wasn't even your Plan A."

"If I hadn't done it, someone else would have. And I would get killed, Abigail. That's the job."

"Are you even listening to yourself? I, I, I. It's all about you. Well, what about me? If I actually did agree to strike your name off the report, I could get fired. Fuck, _I_ could go join Krantz. But I don't really matter when times get rough, do I?"

"That is not why I made sure you were in charge of the case. It is not! I knew you would do a good job. Not just with the report, but that you would help them. And look how great Scofield has done after…"

"You might want to save that one for him because he is in a much more forgiving mood these days than I am."

But of course, it had never been the forgiveness that Paul Kellerman was after.

"Are you going to name me in the report? It's gonna send me to jail, Abigail."

Upon the second thought, he had never apologized for missing decades. It was as if a simple sorry was below him. Maybe saying it by herself, for him, should be below her by now.

"Fuck you, dad," she snorted, then showed herself out.

* * *

Abigail told Lincoln first. Sitting on the stairs in front of his son's building and fumbling with her phone, she waited until time had slipped into tomorrow and two windows opened to ask her if she had locked herself out and needed to be buzzed in.

"Hey, I'm on the stairs," she said when he picked up.

"What stairs?"

"Just look through the window?"

When he emerged from the building a mere minute later, he was holding a jacket in his hands.

"Here," he said. He draped it over her shoulders even though the warmth of the brick buildings surrounding them kept the cool of the night at bay.

She didn't argue. She told him there was something – some _things_ – he needed to know and that it would make him really, really mad. He had, after all, never said or done anything that would make her know that everything, yet at the same time nothing, not really, could make him angry with her.

So when the truth was out there, she held her breath and waited for him to get up and stomp and curse her like she was Kellerman incarnate and yell until she'd start shouting back and they'd wake the building up. Even if her words brought back the memories of him at his most powerless, the fighter in him breathed it out and his eyes followed a runner passing them.

"Let's have dinner," he said, and the seriousness and the unexpectedness of the answer made it impossible to keep in the laughter.

"Now? It's past midnight. Nothing's still open."

"Don't be ridiculous. McDonald's is open 24/7. And it's, what, late evening on the West Coast?" he was completely serious about the wrongest thing.

"It's okay to be mad, Lincoln. I mean… my dad ruined your life. Ruined six years of your brother's life."

There had been a time, not that long ago, really, when he would have championed her claim. Not that he didn't agree with it in theory now; it was just that in practice, he was tired of getting up on the wrong side of the bed and absolutely sick and tired of waking up alone.

"We can't choose who are fathers are. But we can choose who we are. And I think you are great," he said but gave her no time to dwell on her words. He got up and, holding out a hand, went, "Let's go."

Once she was on her feet, with hesitation and intrigue, his fingers reached for the zipper of her – his – jacket. She told him it was completely unnecessary, but in a true Linc the Sink fashion, he disregarded the words.

"It's in the middle of a summer," she argued.

"It can get chilly at night," he said, as if he had umpteen New York summers – or any, really – under his belt.

"If I survived a winter up in Washington, I am pretty sure I can make it through tonight."

"Will you just let me do this for you?" he insisted, and she would tell him that he absolutely had no say when it came to her clothes, but that would be like they had made no progress whatsoever.

"Let's just go," she said, grabbing his forearm. Once they were on the sidewalk, she headed left before he said it was to the right. As each turned to fix the confusion, they crashed into each other. Amidst awkward apologies and blushed smiles they walked side by side and she let him slip his hand in hers.

Just a few hours later, Abigail visited Michael at work. She needn't have bothered, of course.

A blueprint was spread out on the desk between them and a pile of files rested at the edge of the desk. Whoever put them there hadn't bothered to organize them in the slightest, and a Michael Scofield she had known would absolutely never sit by such a ghastly sight. But the Michael Scofield that now sat facing her kept his pencils (he still made sure those were perfectly sharpened) in a mug that had "world's greatest dad" written on in handwriting that didn't give away his son's age. His eyes kept sneaking toward the wall clock, as though he was counting down to something.

His attention might have been divided and nothing about his face indicated she was under scrutiny, but she knew better. It couldn't escape him how she kept wringing her hands, mulling over ten different phrasing she had come up with and somehow finding flaws with each.

"So do you know how Mahone became involved with the video?" he spoke when it probably dawned on him that she was about to ask him about the project he was working on.

"Bruce Bennett got in contact with him, I guess. Convinced him he was working for the Company – because, you know, who wasn't back then. He knew that a video like that would make you want to retaliate, bring the Company down. For Mahone, it was probably a way to get you out of the hiding."

"Aren't I easy to read," he smiled.

"It would break Bruce's heart if he knew his actions kept you guys apart for so long," she remarked.

"I've thought a lot about this since I learned I had a son. I don't want to sound patronizing, but you weren't there, those four years we fought the Company. Sucre didn't see his family for almost two years. LJ was kidnapped, twice. If they were with me … I would have dropped the entire mission if they had been threatened and the Company wouldn't have thought twice about it. My son might not have had me, but he had his mother and was safe the entire time. If spending six years without them was the price I had to pay for that, I don't regret it. What kind of a father would I be if I did? But anyway," he leaned forward in his chair, "I'm guessing you're here to tell me your Kellerman's daughter? And that he was the one who took Sara that day?"

He didn't say it with spite, as an accusation or a reprimand that he had to be the bringing it up. Years he had spent obsessing over the missing pieces that had seized his future; now that he had reclaimed it all, he was almost nonchalant about it. What a paradox; months she had spent easing their then present, and now they were the ones urging her to let the past rest.

"How long have you known?" she did her best to match his tone.

"A while," he said, and of course he would know. Thousands had canvassed the woodland of Pacific Northwest and he found DB Cooper without taking a step out of his Chicago apartment. He had located Shales when the latter was hidden in everyone's sight. "But by then neither still mattered."

"I don't think my father's actions will ever become immaterial," she snorted and for the life of her couldn't figure out what about her words was worth a smile, however pensive.

His eyes followed a caucus of steps that passed by his office. If he was late for a meeting, he didn't appear to have any intention of hurrying. In all honesty, Michael Scofield was such an allure for potential clients that he could just be sitting in his office all day (or whatever definition of a workday he had these days), writing off every offer that landed on his desk for pettiest reasons, yet he'd be the firm's most cherished employee.

"I don't think it is likely, but it is possible that if you put your father's name in the report, he could go to prison for a long time, Abigail."

"I know that," she said, but he looked at her like she didn't.

"I understand that it is hard for you to believe this right now, Abigail, but your father and I are not really that different. We both fought for what we believed was right. The only difference is, in the end, it turned out he was wrong. It could have easily been the other way around. And yes, it takes him a while, but eventually your father makes the right decision. He did it with the Company," he said. There were more words lingering on his lips, and she knew what they were before he added, "He did it with you, too. Let him do it again."

* * *

**Part Two**

 

They had been told that an official statement would be issued informing the public of the latest – and hopefully finally the last – twist in the Scofield/Burrows case, but of course nothing ever went according to the plan in their world.

Sara found out first.

She was at the store with their boy, right at the cereal aisle, staring at the shelves that didn't seem to have an end. Surely it must have always been like this, brand names and flavors and catchy slogans and percentages in all colors and fonts, but somehow it had all escaped her back when she had been alone. As a prison doctor with a spotless record, part of keeping her veins clean was following the established routine without daring a fail. The assortment in her fridge rarely added an item, for most hours of most days she had spent at Fox River, reminding herself of why she needed to keep it together.

Now everything had fallen apart, again, and the selection in front of her could so easily remind her of the cankers she had sought to quell in the first place. Grade average, then internships, father's career, a name to live up to, the guilt she still wasn't sure was her to shoulder. But this now was a peaceful mess, not at all making her want to use again. Yet she still was picking up the pieces and building a new life, this time for the three of them, with the same diligence as all those times that followed her fails. Choosing the perfect cereal might be mundane to some, but she treated it with utmost seriousness, which Bryce duplicated.

"Do you think Marie will notice that we stopped coming?" he asked, staring blankly at the cartoon faces he didn't recognize.

"Who's Marie, baby?"

"The lady at the market who always gives us extra," he reminded her, and if he thought she should have known it, his voice hid it.

"I'm sure she'll notice we are not around anymore," she said, absolutely unsure whether it was the right answer.

"Do you think she will wonder if she did something wrong?" he went on, his eyes big in the attempt to be expressionless.

She had gotten remarkably, devastatingly good at replacing the faces and finding new names to commit to the short term memory. She didn't forget the old ones, the people she had finally admitted to herself she was better off without. The man she had lived with and loved in the stupor of drugs. The girl she had first used with a week before the exams started. The parents of the boy she might have been able to save if her mind and her hands weren't drugged up. While the night was busy with quietude, she wept with the pain of the latter and the fear that the former were no longer living.

Bryce would forget. The lady with the fruit stand had been a staple of his life until now, just like the little corner store where they had shopped for discounted bread and produce minutes before closing. There was that pigeon with one leg he had always looked for whenever they were in the park and the ducks that had always followed them in hopes of breadcrumbs.

But he was so young.

In a few months, he would remember people from Lille as talking in English. He would know how to get to places without ever finding them. In a few years, it would only still exist in fragments, and he would ask her if it had even been real.

"You could ask Selena to talk to her," she suggested.

"Is it bad to miss Lille sometimes?"

"Of course not, baby," she said, bending down to kiss the crown of his head. After learning that his favorite wasn't sold in America, he seemed as perplexed as to which cereal to get as she was. "It was our home."

"But we are not going back, right? We are staying here with dad?"

She wondered if he had actually entertained the possibility, unlike her, when she saw a woman approaching. Her steps were innocuous, as though she was to seek help with the small print. But the way she looked at Sara, it was like people look at those they had known once. Six years ago, for instance. But the woman didn't recognize Sara from many shared interactions.

"Miss Tancredi. It was so brave what you did in Fox River," the woman smiled at her, reaching for her petrified hand. "I am so happy for you and Mr. Scofield."

It may end fine, for it was just words, but the woman then noticed Bryce. The boy stood next to Sara, his eyes as inquisitively on the woman as on pretty much everything around his new home. If he was any other boy, it might _still_ be okay, but nothing about him left any doubt that he was Michael Scofield's son.

"Oh," the woman gasped and Sara knew she was supposed to do something, anything, but it was like one of those nightmares when you know you are dreaming but still can't wake yourself up. it had been weeks, more weeks than she could count with the fingers of one hand, but the threat of waking up alone still loomed, and this right now felt like the realest thing of all that had happened.

It wasn't just the woman in the colorful poncho. Her name had been said just loud enough to attract the attention of other shoppers, and maybe it was just the name that prolonged their looks. After all, her father had relied on its unusualness for recognition early in his career. Maybe her role in the daring prison break and her subsequent fate had made her infamous all on her own. When she was younger, she would have hoped for the latter. Now that she was a mother, she prayed for the former but was not naive enough to be fooled.

If at first it was only the woman, mere seconds later another shopping cart stopped and a man took a phone in his hands. Whispers of names and places were as screaming as sirens, and she had feared this moment for too long to remember there was no danger anymore.

The woman's hand reached to touch Bryce, just like she had imagined a stranger's hand taking him away from her, and there was a sound of the moment being immortalized with a photograph, the click she had thought her boy would forever see as an insurmountable betrayal.

Sara had always believed that if her new life in France one day merged with the one she left behind in Chicago, she wouldn't fight it. She had thought she would accept the outcome with grace she had lived the years Michael's sacrifice had given her. Never had she imagined herself running, running again, yet that was exactly what she did now.

She snatched the boy out of the woman's, or anyone else's, reach, as though any of them were anything but well-meaning. She would push away the man who zoomed in on her face with his phone, but he cleared her way. She ran down the aisle, past the cereal choices, as though she had no other option.

* * *

The first time his assistant informed him that there were a couple of reporters trying to reach him, Michael instructed her to take their names and tell them he would call them back later. The award he had recently been given interested only a few; since his actions had dismantled the previous government, everyone wanted to know what he thought about the one established from its ashes. Every major decision made by the Congress was accompanied with a flood of calls from reporters in want of his opinion.

Most of the time he called back, just to say he didn't really have a comment, still hoping that this time it would stop the calls. It never did, and now that he had a family to go to, giving it another try was an unlikely contingency.

He had taken on another project just weeks before colors so unexpectedly permeated his world again. It was as intricate, as stressful, as demanding as the previous one, but unlike that one, this project had overstayed its welcome. He wanted to give it to one of his partners in the firm, maybe stay on the project as a consultant, but Sara wouldn't hear of it. Since there was no way he would stay within the confines of his office past the early afternoon despite the deadline he had promised to his client and to her, he perused and detailed the sketches and calculations with focus greater than when it had been the only way to let go, however fleetingly. The only interruption he greeted was the buzz of his phone, another reminder – and he still needed those – that his night had passed into a morning, the most unexpected one, the most longed for one.

The second time his assistant apologetically knocked on his door, the capillaries turned into icicles and he didn't need her words to know that his comment wasn't wanted in relation to any of his engineering feats or newly passed acts. He grabbed his jacket and rushed home, on foot to beat the rush hour.

There was no one left who would pick up a gun and blow the dust off its barrel at the sight of Sara's picture, but his still heart still pounded. He had always feared for her as much as he loved her; there was the fear of what the unconstrained inmates would do to her if they broke the door down before he could get to her; the fear of what she would think of his in the wake of Nika's appearance, and the paralyzing dread when he realized the Company had gotten to her after all. As much as it proved to him, again and again, just how much loved her, it constantly reminded him of the peril his presence in her life posed for her. Love wasn't supposed to be marred like this, but then again, they had beaten so many odds that perhaps it evened out.

Lincoln had gotten there before him, although it wasn't one of the mornings when he disregarded being at work on time. He was in the living room with Bryce. The TV was on but neither was watching it. A plate of untouched pancakes (Lincoln insisting on making them for breakfast at least twice per week rendered any attempts to have sugar free days destined to fail) was on the couch. The pair sat on the floor, each at the opposite sides of the coffee table, the second one Michael had bought for the living room. Pieces of a puzzle were scattered between them. Bryce's nimble fingers were picking the ones with a specific pattern, while Lincoln kept running his hand over his scalp. He had never been the one with the patience to sit and wait, and today was far from a good day.

Michael hurried toward the boy, but Lincoln, anxious to actually do something, was quick on his feet. His hand was on his little brother's shoulder, gently yet insistently forcing him a few steps backward. Bryce repositioned himself so that his back was turned to them. He might be only five, but he had heard the adults talking enough times to know when he wasn't supposed to be listening.

"It hit the news this morning," Lincoln told him.

When he had had no one to share mornings with, he would read the news while having his morning coffee – he never listened to the accounts of recent events, for without voices around him, he could still pretend he wasn't as alone as he really was. Scrolling down the news and wasting seconds of the early morning sun was incomprehensible now when he woke up next to her, the memories of dawns without her still too recent not to chase them away with her in his arms every chance he got.

"She seems fine," Lincoln went on. "But I figured she could use some alone time, you know?"

Michael nodded, and even if Lincoln tried to keep him from his son for an additional second, Michael wouldn't put up with it.

Bryce had wondered about the sound of his father's steps for too long not to have committed it to the memory immediately. He turned around and threw himself in dad's arms as soon as Michael knelt in front of him.

"You okay?" he whispered, and even though Bryce nodded, his small hands continued clinging to him.

"Mom's really upset," the boy's voice dropped to a whisper that was in stark contrast with Lincoln's casualness.

"I'll go see how she is," Michael said. It didn't seem to calm the boy, who bit his lower lip as his eyes searched for something on his father's face. Clear doubt as to whether his lips should release the words that unnerved him sent another kind of cold shivers down Michael's spine. He wanted to remind the boy that they could talk about anything, anytime, but repeating those words felt irrationally like a failure. So he just smiled as reassuringly as his raging bloodstream allowed him, ran his hands soothingly up and down the boy's upper arms, giving him space no book he had read prepared him for.

"Dad, what is Fox River?" Bryce finally asked. "The lady in the store said something about it, and it really upset mom."

Michael hated to be this kind of dad, the one responding to questions with a promise of answering them at a later time, and the fact that he didn't do it out of convenience or cowardice offered him little solace. He didn't want their son to find out the truth this young and was sure that Sara detested the idea as well, but if there was no other option, he wanted them to decide on it together.

"I'm gonna get your mom and we'll talk, the three of us, okay?" he said, kissing the top of his son's head.

He had no idea what to expect as he walked toward their bedroom, but what he found definitely wasn't it. Sara sat cross-legged in the middle of their bed, a laptop by her feet. Her eyes remained on the screen as the door behind him closed and he took off his jacket, throwing it on the bed. When it slid off its edge, he didn't halt his steps to pick it up like he would when he had still sought the most mundane actions to fill the torturous quietude of his existence.

He didn't know what to say. An apology would be a platitude and she was dismayed even when he apologized for things that absolutely were consequences of his actions. So he resorted to what by now had become a habit, an indulging and shameful one at the same time. He sat down behind her, her back on his chest to show he'd always be there to catch her, his arms around her waist with no intention of letting go, his chin resting on her shoulder so that he could forever look out for her.

Glancing at the screen in front of them, he expected to see their names, their faces, under the sensational, yet for once truthful headlines. He tilted his head to distract her, to distract himself, to kiss the spot on her neck, the unmarked one he knew he should but never would let go. When he realized she was looking at job advertisements, he knew she definitely was not okay.

_We always do this_ , she had told him one glorious day in the park. They always kept their eyes forward, as they should, but the past was an immoral opponent. Just as they thought they had passed it, it passed them right back. It would be a good idea to stay ahead, to talk it out, but they still kissed like the real danger lurked in the present.

"I think it is time for me to find a job."

"You don't have to work," he told her.

"I'm not gonna be your housewife, Scofield," she said, because teasing each other like this was just one more kind of tiptoeing they excelled at. "Though I can't imagine working twelve-hour shifts in a hospital anymore," she admitted.

"Please don't."

His hand caressed the belly, right where they would hopefully feel a new life grow soon, and it was hard to see today as a step forward rather than backward.

"And we have to find a good school for Bryce," she went on, as though it went without saying that they would stay with him in New York. It wasn't so for him; the two of them had had a life before coming here, more of a life that he had, and they would leave more behind than he had ever had without them. The last thing he wanted was to steal from their boy everything he knew, for Michael still remembered all too well how it felt, bouncing from one foster home to another.

But right now, it wasn't the right time to bring it up.

"Okay," was all he said.

"Like you haven't looked yet," she smirked, then bit her lower lip. "What are we gonna tell him, Michael?"

He had no right answer to this, knew which was the wrong one, so he said neither. He covered her hand with his and gently moved it off the laptop. The latter he closed, then pushed away, out of her arms' length and out of her mind. He reached for her shoulders, so that she rested her head on his chest. The persistent tears she had until now tried to keep from spilling wetted his shirt.

"He's just a kid, Michael. I don't want him knowing about all … that. That's why I never looked you up, that's why I never knew you were…"

"Don't think about that that now, sweetheart," he whispered, cupping her head to take the memories away and kissing her temple to give her a new one to replace them.

"The way they looked at him, like he was an exhibit or something … I just want him to be a kid, you know? He's already seen so much and I'm not proud of it. His teacher in Lille wanted him to skip a grade, but that would mean losing a year of everything, childhood, adolescence. When I was his age, my mother already drank so much. I could name her favorites just as easily as my ABCs, you know?"

He ran soothing circles on her back until to his relief the sobs subsided. She moved back and looked up at him with reddened eyes.

"I'm fine. And absolutely ridiculous," she said, for she was a bit like him, being fine when she wasn't okay at all. Something in his eyes seemed to remind her of this, and her hands combated with his as she tried to wipe her tears away. His heart broke at the thought of all the ones she had kept in because he wasn't there to kiss them away.

"It won't be the same for him," he told her when she let him win. Soon there were no tears left that soiled her beauty, but his caress didn't cease. "We'll be there for him. And we should tell him the truth. He'll hear about it, sooner or later. And it's best that it comes from you and me."

"I like that," she said, "you and me."

"I do, too," he said leaning his forehead to hers. He liked it when she was this close to him, the only thing he could see even though his eyes were open. "And you did the right thing not to look. I would want you and our child as far away from it as possible."

* * *

Saying that the doorbell ringing was the last thing Lincoln expected to occur later that day would be a lie, for seeing Kellerman on the doorstep transcended it.

Just like he didn't lie to people, Lincoln had no problems admitting his own fuck-ups, most of the time. But Kellerman had influenced some of the most abysmal ones. Not to mention, he had been the one to gun down Lisa, then chase his barefoot son around Chicago while putting a double murder charge on his back. But okay, Lincoln could at least nominally forgive him for that, as it had been his job and he too had been deceived, and both he and his brother would have been killed more than once had it not been for Kellerman turning tables.

Now Lincoln knew about two more lines on Kellerman's rap sheet – though god knew just how many he still kept hidden – and he hadn't slept on it enough to let bygones be bygones. The fact that they concerned the mother of his nephew and a woman he had quit cigarettes for didn't help Kellerman one bit either. Lincoln Burrows might be a thug, might have killed and have gotten people killed and was guilty of most crimes he had been convicted of in his life, but there were some things you just didn't do to a woman. Tying her up before throwing her in the water or convince her to cover up the said deed for you were two such instances.

"Kellerman," he gritted his teeth.

"Burrows," he responded, his voice fully indicating he was aware of the sentiment. "I'm here to speak to Sara. I'm guessing they're staying with Scofield?"

Lincoln fought the urge to say that they weren't, and with each second of the prolonged silence the reasons against slamming the door in Kellerman's face eluded him further. But of course Kellerman was like an insect, importunately returning until you dealt with him. So he stepped back, not bothering to hold the door as the man walked in.

"Where's the boy? I hear he's a spitting image of Scofield."

"I'd shut up about him if I were you," Lincoln spat.

"You might want to watch that tone with me, Burrows," Kellerman smirked, showing himself to the kitchen as though he owned the place.

"If I was my brother, I'd break every fucking bone in your body."

"Well you aren't," he still wouldn't shut up, because god forbid Paul Kellerman would be silent when the situation was out of his hands.

Lincoln had worked hard to make friends with his temper, find a way to talk it out of any impetuous decisions. They had, after all, never done him any good. He believed he had gotten hold of himself, never more so than right now.

"He would find some noble excuse not to hit you, and I will honor that," he said. "It doesn't really matter, though."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Kellerman still had time to utter before Lincoln's fist crashed into his face. The man, clearly unprepared, staggered back and the palm of his hand covered the bloodied lip. There was disbelief in his eyes, as though no one had ever dared to take a swing at him, but a part of him must have known that he deserved much, much worse, for he didn't swing back. With audacity that Lincoln absolutely wanted to act on, he showed himself to the fridge and took out a bag of frozen peas, numbing the lacerated spot.

"Just so you know," he then said, his words unobstructed as if the venerable State Department official engaged in fist fights on a regular basis, "I don't approve."

* * *

There was a knock on the bedroom door, but they didn't stir. Michael kept her firmly in his arms and watched the door open slowly over her head.

His big brother had never been skilled at non-verbal communication – apart from getting his point across with his fists, that is – but it was apparent that right now, he'd rather be anywhere but there. He gave himself another minute to find words by running a hand over his scalp, but words had never been his forte either and what left his mouth was a plain, "Kellerman's here."

Michael tried to stop his body from reacting to a name he had thought he made peace with a long time ago. If he tightened the embrace, his arms acted without his explicit volition, and if his body tensed up, he didn't feel it. Whatever it was, it didn't escape Sara. Once they were alone again, she asked who Kellerman was.

He had promised her once that he would never lie to her again, but his first instinct was to kiss her, continue kissing her until the name slipped from both of their minds. It was what he opted for every time the sight of her collided with faces, decisions, from years ago. But this wasn't about him, and Kellerman did have a proclivity to pop up in your life at the weirdest corners.

Rarely did he doubt his decisions, but since she was the surest thing in his life, most of her actions concerning her were inevitably laced with doubt. Thus hesitance still permeated his arms as he loosened the embrace, letting her move back so that they faced each other. His eyes more intent on her face than he'd like them to be, he thought about taking her hands in his before deciding on cupping her face.

"Who's Kellerman?" she repeated, her eyes dashing around his face in search of an answer.

He was probably patronizing her, he figured as he watched the panic seep through her shield. She was strong, quite possibly stronger than him, yet he couldn't make himself say anything that wouldn't placate her. It wasn't just Kellerman; it was a pattern. He had tortured himself with the pain he thought she had endured, imagined her fear of what had been inevitable, for too long to place any of it on her face with or without a gun to his head.

"He's Lance," he finally said. He was right, of course. The dread in her eyes accentuated, and he wanted to shut up right then and never talk about any, _any_ of it again. If he wasn't patronizing her, he absolutely was a hypocrite. He believed their boy should hear the truth – or at least its basics – instead of piecing it together from overheard fragments, possibly erroneously. Yet with Sara, he could easily never speak of any day she hadn't been there to share it with him, though sooner or later there would be a day when Paul Kellerman, the politics' newest polarizing figure, would bump into her from the news. So to make sure he was there when she learned about what could be interpreted as a great injustice, he continued, "He later came forward, helped bring the Company down. I think he came to apologize to you."

Her eyes widened at the insinuated audacity. Maybe that was the real reason why Michael eschewed the past when he was with her, for he was just as worthy of being the trigger of this kind of look. There was a young lady that had gotten married a couple of years ago and her father hadn't been there to give her away because of the broken air conditioning in Fox River. Tweener would have been out by now. Nobody knew for sure how many lives departed this world while T-Bag had been out. Really, what right did he have to stay in her arms while Kellerman was abhorred?

"Do you trust him?" she asked him, in absolute trust of his judgment.

"Sara, you don't have to talk to him. Not today, not ever."

But she just shook her head.

An hour later, Paul Kellerman headed for the door with a lacerated lip (which according to Lincoln's dubious account was an accident) and an accepted apology. If Lincoln firmly believed that the first one was deserved, the second was absolutely not earned, and since he couldn't wait to have the man out of his sight, he held the door open for him.

But of course Kellerman wouldn't be Kellerman if he didn't dawdle, intent on having the last word.

"Like I said," he snorted, "I don't approve, Burrows."

"Then I guess we have something in common," Lincoln said, "because I don't approve of you either."

* * *

After Uncle Lincoln went home, his parents called him into their bedroom. Bryce knew it had to be a very serious situation because Thibaut had always told him that parents deliver bad news there. Of course by now it was clear to Bryce that his parents were much, much better than Thibaut's (though comparing parents, especially after having only one for so long, left a sour taste in his mouth), but something in his belly still felt cold as all three of them sat on the bed together.

Mom barely spoke. Her whole body was still, apart from her hands; it seemed like she couldn't decide whether to take his or dad's hand, so she opted for none. Her eyes carefully watched his face, and he didn't like the pallidness that rested on hers at all. Dad was the one who did the talking, his eyes as intent on Bryce as mom's. He knew he should return the attention, but it had been him and mom for too long to already forget how he would climb into her lap when she momentarily forgot she still had him.

Some of the things dad recounted Bryce already knew. His whole life he had been piecing together the story of who his father was, but now when dad was actually here, telling him the details he would have devoured just weeks ago, Bryce realized they didn't really interest him as much anymore. He no longer needed anyone's recollections to feel close to his father now that they could create memories together.

What was new was that Fox River was a prison to which Uncle Lincoln had been sent by bad politicians (Bryce was pretty sure it meant that they were corrupt). Dad then had gone to the prison, too, to get him out, and in the end it was mom, who had worked there, that made the escape possible. The only time mom said anything was when she told him they were telling him all this because sooner or rather, he would hear someone talk about it. Perhaps, she said, he would be asked if his father was the one who had orchestrated the escape from the maximum security penitentiary and then brought the government and some of the most powerful businesses to their knees. Really, the more he was told, the less Bryce understood why mom was so upset. It wasn't like dad had been imprisoned because he had done bad things – like Selena's father. All he did was protect Uncle Lincoln. And from the fragments he had heard in the store, people thought mom was as much of a hero as dad was.

After dad told all they were ready to disclose at the moment (Bryce was certain there was a lot more he wasn't old enough to hear yet), they sat in silence. His parents expected him to say something and the lack of any questions prompted them to exchange a look. The thing was, saying that he really didn't care about what had happened such a long time ago seemed misplaced in so tense a situation. And the only question he really wanted an answer to he knew would unnerve mom further. She never liked it when he spotted a pattern without a second look she needed, and by now he was pretty sure that the devil and the rose of dad's tattoo were only a decoy. The lines they hid he now figured were the pathway dad had taken to save Uncle Lincoln. He decided to ask dad about it when mom wouldn't be around.

But for now mom was here and clearly worried about his reaction. She was always like this when he did something for the first time – on his first school day, before his first play date with Thibaut. Although he couldn't remember, he was pretty sure she had cried when he had taken his first steps, too. Now when they were with dad, finally, mom didn't need to worry about him growing up and leaving her alone.

So to celebrate it, he did the one thing he knew she never minded. He threw his hands around mom's neck and cuddled up next to her. When dad kissed the top of his head, then mom's cheek, before wrapping them both in an embrace, the boy knew it was the right choice.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Review, maybe? :)

**Sandcastles/The Bars Between Us**

**Part Three – Forward**

**Chapter Sixteen**

In all honesty, Lincoln was the only one absolutely ecstatic that Bryce was spending the night at his place. It wasn't said out loud, but he had no plans to bring the boy back before the late afternoon at the earliest. He was busy being a father he never was and determined to be the uncle he never thought he would get a chance to be, and he didn't care that much that it was detrimental to his attempts at being a reliable employee.

Bryce was definitely Michael's son, though. He made sure that he had packed his toothbrush and made sure he had extra extra clothes, "just in case". Sara, too, double checked everything, trying and failing to hide how seeing her son's bag packed unnerved her. Michael might not be physically zipping and unzipping the bag, his eyes were in an unwavering focus and his mind kept updating the list of the bag's components. It would be simple, even righteous, for anyone in Lincoln's shoes to interpret the situation as distrust, but after being almost executed more than once, coupled with his innate ability to just not give a fuck, offending Lincoln Burrows was quite an accomplishment.

"You know, my son did live to reach adulthood and is still kicking," he couldn't resist teasing Sara.

"I'm sorry, it's not you," she said, "he's just never been away for a whole night."

"Well, it's what they do, grow up," he sighed, although, if he was as upfront as he prided himself to be, he had not been around enough to claim he knew much more than that. But if there was one thing he knew, it was how to stay alive and keep those around him alive as well.

Finally, the bag was checked enough times and the boy gathered the courage to hug his mom goodbye. Dad told him they would call to say goodnight later in the evening, and with each additional word, Bryce's lips were pressed together with greater force. But just like his dad, he was unwilling to let his face bear any emotion of the negative specter, so when he walked toward the front door holding his uncle's hand, his smile was admirably reassuring.

* * *

When Michael got home, Sara had just stepped out of the shower and every lock of her hair was carefully, purposely, tucked under the towel on her head. He probably should have figured it out – given his reputation, absolutely – when she didn't let her hair fall down her shoulders to let the air do away with its dampness; however, her presence alone still rendered any thinking secondary to just looking at her.

So he didn't know about it until their son and Lincoln had gone (together with an overnight bag packed with enough supplies to last them a week) and they were running just slightly late. In a life without her, he would have never allowed himself to be late for just a fraction of these minutes, but back then, he had needed every trivial concern to occupy his mind.

He was in the kitchen, flipping through a book their son had left on the table. It was just one more thing the boy got from his mother, Michael acknowledged smilingly. That the sight of her would take his breath away was an expectation, but the makeup was more conspicuous that he had ever seen it on her. The lips seemed fuller and her eyes appeared lusher. The dress she wore was cut lower and the hem was higher up her thighs than he was used with her – but then again, he had never taken her out before, at least not the way a man was supposed to treat a woman. He appreciated how the dress, so slyly red, embraced her curves, proving to his eyes what his hands discovered every night – that their life together finally started to hide the years of worry that had tired her body.

And her hair, her hair was carefully combed, the curls that always felt so light between his fingers flipped onto her right shoulder. But it wasn't its enticing softness or the radiance it caught under the mundane kitchen light that made his jaw drop.

"You dyed your hair," he managed.

"Well, there is no reason to hide anymore," she shrugged and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, wickedly pleased by the reaction she prompted.

His eyes could usually take everything in with a single glance yet now they stayed on her, like he couldn't quite put together all the pieces into a whole. He was not the kind of man to say it out loud (or at least didn't allow himself to be like that around her), but it seeped through his chivalry that he could hardly wait to make the fabric slip down her body until her skin would be all he could feel beneath his touch. She couldn't decide whether her noticing it meant that his guard around her was finally coming down or was higher up than ever.

He took her to one of those places she had thought she was done frequenting. The lights were dim in that elegant fashion and the small table at which they were seated made it impossible not to be close, in a way not salacious in the slightest. The couples around them were all dressed up, like them, but none seemed to feel as out of place as she did.

Obviously he would choose such a perfect place. It could almost make her believe that they were just like this, too, so perfect in their imperfections rather than broken under their weights. It was a strange sentiment, since this was who they were, now, still, again; their best selves, the glistening of their miracle eclipsing the very reasons why they had needed one.

He had her figured out, of course, always tirelessly, obsessively studying her reactions, smallest movements, like she was one of his blueprints. He wanted tonight to be about them, the version he insisted they were, and he enfolded her fingers with his to bring her attention back to him. If he noticed her disdain of their little decoy, he didn't share it. Maybe all it boiled down to was that she was just cynical while he still nurtured hope, faith.

Sometimes she thought she was being unfair. She had what she would have prayed for if she had thought it possible to have. It felt blasphemous to be anything but happy. Not that she wasn't happy; it was just that sometimes she felt like she was still only a part of his plan. This was what was so unfair about this line of thinking, for if it was a scheme, its only aim was to give her the perfect life. Somehow it escaped his meticulous planning that it wasn't the perfection she was after; all she wanted was him, and too often it seemed like what she got was tailored for her.

She didn't know what made tonight different. Maybe all it came down to was that instead of the solitude of the night, they were surrounded by people. One moment she was telling him about a birthday party their son had been invited to and his eyes followed hers in animation that was only for her. The next time she wanted to lock her eyes with him, it was as if he could not hear her and something she couldn't see kept her out of his eyes' reach. Wherever he was, there wasn't anyone with him, and without the night to disguise it, she saw what Lincoln always tiptoed around when asked how it had been, back when he had ascribed himself to death. Whatever it was, she was certain she wouldn't want to be there. And what she was even surer of, he would not even let her have the choice.

The latter was made screamingly clear when, after the third call of his name, he suddenly snapped out of it. The dead of his eyes was annihilated by that spark of adoration, lie, that he was always so careful to harbor around her, and the ease with which he substituted terror with smile insinuated he didn't do it for the first time.

"Are you okay?" she asked, knowing the answer was an elbow caught playing basketball, nothing when his foot was maimed, and a part where he didn't answer her. He had pleaded her once not to make him lie to her, yet he had nonetheless, countless times since, and right now, it was no exception.

"Of course," his voice was smooth, just like on the days when he still had had to lie to her for reasons so easily excusable.

If the start of the evening was about them, Michael's goal for its remainder was to make her forget about those scarce moments he had been away from her. He made sure their bodies were in continuous contact; if the pads of his fingers couldn't play with hers or caress the insides of her wrists, his knees bumped against hers.

As the night was busy reigning over the world, they were left with the peace to stroll along the Hudson River. He would not let her put any distance between them even if she implored him. His arms were wrapped around her as tightly as though the stars above them were snow about to fall. His lips were on her temple, eyelids, her jaw, rendering any inquiries pointless, since he couldn't answer any more than she wanted him to. Before they had met and every day since they had found each other again, she promised herself to never let this happen, but somehow they were as apart as they were together.

* * *

The day before the long-awaited sleepover Lincoln had taken Abigail out for lunch. They usually met for dinner, but it had been a Thursday night and he encouraged her to revive her habit of spending Thursday evenings with her father – for her sake, of course, not Kellerman's. Even though Lincoln had learned to separate his personal and professional life, Kellerman was still in the gray area – and that was Lincoln being generous.

As they had waited for their food, he asked her about the psychology diploma she had almost gotten.

"Yeah, I was a few credits short," she nodded.

"But you could talk to Bryce, right? To see if he's … okay?"

"I wanted to specialize in Asperger's and I can assure you your nephew doesn't have it," she laughed, and of course his ensuing sigh was of the irritated kind, because for Lincoln, if you knew psychology, you knew it without buts. She argued she didn't really know enough about LLI to make any kind of reliable judgements, but he insisted, because it was the most direct way of telling her that he wanted her at his place (okay, his son's) that he was capable of.

It didn't escape Bryce's effortless observation Uncle Lincoln and Aunt Abigail (when he first called her this, her jaw dropped and she shook her head. Uncle Lincoln, on the other hand, didn't skip the beat, nodding, "She is your aunt, Bryce. Don't you let her convince you otherwise.") were nothing like mom and dad. When mom and dad were making dinner together, it was like watching one of those movies Aunt Moni obsessed over. Somehow they each knew just what to do: who was to peel the potatoes or cut the carrots. They didn't need words to let the other know. Sometimes, when mom was the one cutting the vegetables with the big knife Bryce was not allowed to touch, dad stepped right behind her, so close that she didn't need to look over her shoulder to know he was there. Without an exception, she leaned onto his chest and into his arms. He covered her hands with his, and it was an invitation as well as a request. She freed her hands for his, and his fingers caressed hers like they had all the time in the world. As dad picked up the knife instead of mom, she leaned her cheek to his and a smile spread across dad's face.

There was absolutely nothing serene in the air when Uncle Lincoln and Aunt Abigail were in the kitchen, cooking. Maybe Uncle Lincoln saw how his brother always insisted on handling the large knife and deemed it a nice gesture. That might be true, but Aunt Abigail didn't appreciate it at all. First she told him to stop standing so close to her, and when he wouldn't move, she poked him in the ribs with her elbow.

"God damn it, I just don't want you to injure yourself," he barked. Most of the time, Uncle Lincoln remembered not to say bad words, but sometimes it seemed like he didn't even notice them escaping his mouth. The latter usually occurred when Aunt Abigail was around. However, since he was trying, Bryce didn't remind him of his presence.

"I know ways of handling the knife you can't even imagine," she snapped back.

After rubbing the back of his head, Uncle Lincoln declared he was off to the store to get ice cream for after dinner – even though he had told Bryce on the drive over that his freezer was stacked with Ben and Jerry's and that they were going to try each flavor to decide on their favorite one.

Bryce figured his uncle was doing what the boy had been taught in school – that if you were angry, it was best to remove yourself from the situation and count to ten. And since Uncle Lincoln was so gigantic in stature, he guessed he would need to count to a much larger number to calm down.

Later, however, it occurred to Bryce that his uncle hadn't left just out of fear of saying something he would come to regret not too long after. Once the pots were on the stove, Aunt Abigail sat down next to him. Of course she might only want to chat, like aunts usually did, but her shoulders were a bit too tense and the distance between them was a bit too big. She reminded her of the lady he used to talk to in Lille, except that Aunt Abigail didn't wear any perfume and they nibbled at carrots rather than watched the fish of tropical colors swim in the fish tank.

"How are you?" she asked him, or, rather, repeated the question she had posed when he had arrived. He was pretty sure, though, that she wasn't inquiring about the same thing anymore.

"I'm not super hungry, to be honest," he said, laying his arms on the table. He crossed them at his wrists and rested his chin, looking up at her in wait of a clarification he knew was incoming.

"I meant, about being with your dad."

"I know that is what you meant. I'm happy."

"Would you mind saying a bit more?"

Bryce's vocabulary contained more than enough words to comply with her request and had the skill to put them together into chains impressive for his age, but that single word encompassed everything perfectly. So he just shrugged. He did regret his response slightly when she told him that it was okay not to feel fine some days. That just because he was with his dad now, it didn't mean that he would be, or even should be, alright all the time.

"Not being well sometimes is not selfish," she told him.

But Bryce already knew that things did not need to be perfect all the time to be the best. It was a lesson he had learned the previous week when mom was in bed with a bad headache and dad lay next to her, as if believing his presence could fight away any further pain. Mom had done the same thing when it was just the two of them in Lille.

Mom didn't like to take any kind of medication (even though she gave it to the people in her care when they were in pain), opting for cups of tea instead. She always said that the tea he made for her instantly made her feel better, and even though Bryce knew it wasn't _exactly_ true, he still felt good, boiling the water, pouring it over a teabag in a cup and giving it to mom. That day there was a second mug on the table, the one dad always drank from.

Maybe he filled the mug too close to the rim. Maybe it was just one of those things that happen without a reasonable cause; either way, it slid from his hands, breaking into a dozen or so pieces before he could gasp in trepidation.

There were tea stains on his socks and he felt them on his skin, but the image of his father's favorite mug in shards pushed everything else out of his mind. He knew better than picking up the pieces and mopping the floor, but his feet wouldn't move toward his parents' bedroom either. He had not yet thought of an alternative or convinced himself that it was only a cup, without any special drawing or a saying, and just before tears would spill from his eyes, dad came to the kitchen, probably to help him carry the tea mugs. The sight of the mess on the floor halted his steps. Bryce tried to read his face to get an idea of just how angry he was, but the image was becoming increasingly blurry.

"I am so sorry," he managed before his vision turned into shapeless specks of colors that all gravitated toward gray. Dad had never raised his voice at him, much less got mad, but there was a first for everything and Thibaut's father got saw red on occasions much less grave.

Dad stepped closer, not even looking down at his own feet to avoid the sharpness of the shards. His strong arms lifted the boy up and sat him down on the counter.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his hands gently laid on Bryce's shoulders, his eyes following the paths tears were taking down the boy's face. He still didn't care whether he stood in the spilled tea that was minutes away from cooling down.

"It was your favorite mug. You drink from it every morning," Bryce pointed out, deciding it was for the best to just go straight to what he had done.

What he didn't know was that Michael had never realized that one particular cup was so central in his mornings. When it had been only him, he had a routine in place, opening the cupboard every morning and taking out the first mug that was closest to his reach. After finishing his coffee, he washed it and put it back. It wasn't that he would have a special regard for the cup; it was just that when he had bought a set of mugs, this one was the last he had taken out of the box and placed on the lowest of the cupboard shelves.

"It is just a cup," he now told his son while clearing his face of the tears. "I could get a thousand cups just like it. But I can have only one you. I'm not mad. Please don't be upset."

Bryce might see a bit clearer, but he still could not fathom why dad wouldn't be upset.

"I'm really trying to be good."

"You're the best thing that has ever happened to me," dad smiled, and only when the socks were off his feet did Bryce realize just how drenched with tea they were. "I love you; I will love you no matter what."

There was undeniable relief on dad's face when Bryce nodded and pressed his tear-stained face against his chest.

* * *

Later, Michael took off all of Sara's clothes, even slower than usual, yet it was not slowly enough to sedate her mind. He was too observant and absolutely knew her too well not to notice how she wasn't already arching into his touch when his lips had barely moved past her collarbone. His mouth still traveled down her body, because this was how it worked for them, sooner or later, their bodies making them oblivious to whatever turmoil seized their minds.

He was kneeling between her legs, his hand caressing the smoothness of her thighs, his cheek resting on her hip. What was usually riveting for him and a tease for her could now be just an accidental touch of two strangers on the subway. Something that didn't work for her would never work for him, so he finally sighed and rolled onto his side next to her. The pad of his index finger ran lazy circles on her naked belly, as though he didn't really take the situation to heart, but she knew better.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said. It was probably unfair to hope for an honest answer since she had never been, and still wasn't, upfront with him when she wasn't fine. Nonetheless, she went, "Are you?"

"I am a little bit disheartened at the moment if I'm honest," he tried, but his voice gave away he didn't think any higher of his attempt than she did.

"You promised to never lie to me. Do you remember that?"

"I'm not lying to you," he said, pretending all she meant was right now. They were brilliant at honesty when the clothes were scattered around the bed, and as they locked eyes, he opted for ignorance.

"Right," she said and flicked his hand off her body. First, she only turned her head away from him so that her welling eyes would escape his noticing; then, aware that he knew anyway, she turned her back to him, as if this exact kind of honesty wasn't the one that kept bringing tears. She reached for the pile of clothes they had been discarding, night after night, never bothering to pick them up in the mornings. She pulled over her head the t-shirt that covered her the most.

"I'm sorry, I just can't do this anymore," she said, stumbling to her feet without allowing herself the merest glance at him. It was so melodramatic she would laugh if it wasn't her doing the walking away, down the hallway, to the living room. The further she got, the more she needed to reaffirm herself this wasn't theatricality. They could not go on like this, with this selective candor that never extended past their sheets. He had to realize it. Perhaps, she wondered as she lay down on the couch that seemed to have no fucking end, he did. Maybe that was why he was so desperate to keep it going, terrified of what she, _he_ , would find underneath their ploy.

Was he afraid that if she knew what he had done, she wouldn't want him around her and Bryce anymore? Or that he would be the one imposing such a restriction upon himself? It was just one in a long string of questions that besieged her thoughts as she watched the city lights, so bright, promising, so alive, yet out of her reach.

If she was petty, she would make herself believe there was a purpose in his wait. He would let her realize that her head couldn't rest as soundly when decorative pillows substituted for his arms and the grayness of the couch could not match the colors of each other's touch. She never really could fight for long, or at all, when he was her opponent, and these nights she had six years of reasons to never leave his side.

She heard the approach of his steps. She expected him to ask her, plead with her to come back to bed, to mouth the apologies always rendered void by kisses that disarmed her. But there was no pair of arms capturing her and no hand tilting her head to remind her of the goodbyes they had each said in their hearts. Without touching her and without words, he lay down next to her. It would be as if he had just gotten home and didn't want to wake her had he not pulled a sheet over their heads.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I spent too many nights away from you to ever do it again. And since you're not coming back to bed, I'm here," he said.

Despite the thin layer of fabric that kept the lights of the world away, she could make out every feature of his face. It didn't escape her how his eyes busied themselves without ever landing on hers, and she guessed he feared she was angry with him. Everything they had gone through – and perhaps especially what they had not – and yet he didn't know that of all the feelings he awoke in her, anger was only brought upon by misunderstandings.

When he finally dared to look at her, his eyes were raw in honesty she couldn't deny even at her worst. His voice dropped to a whisper when he told her he would go if she asked him to. It was the last thing on her mind, of course, so she shook her head and nestled up closer to him. The sigh that left the lips she longed to kiss was imbued with both apology and relief. As disjointed as they were and as warped as it was, together still felt best to both of them.

"In Gila," she started, as though it was possible in this – or any, really – universe that he would forget the quietest word they had ever exchanged, "do you remember how you told me everything? I didn't ask that of you, and I didn't expect it. And now it's been, what, over a month, and you might as well be a stranger to me. It's like I'm back in Fox River, patching together an idea of you from your prison records and the little you tell me."

"In Gila," he said, "I also promised to never lie to you again. That's a promise I am keeping."

"I know you had to keep things from me in Fox River, Michael. But we are not there anymore, and I don't recall you ever explicitly stating you are _not_ there to break your brother out."

Frustration prevailed in his sigh that followed her words, but she kept going.

"Lincoln tells me things, you know. I didn't even know your father turned out to be a good man."

"Lincoln shouldn't be telling you that."

"You think I don't know that? But what choice am I left with? I swear, Michael, sometimes you get this look on your face, total blankness. But only if you think that I am not watching. And I never know whether it's something I said that takes you back, something you overheard or it is just an anniversary of something. And I would ask if it is me, but I know you would just smile it away, even and especially if it was something I said. I want to talk to you, but how can I if I am constantly afraid of saying something that hurts you?

I'm an addict, Michael. I will always be one. And right now, so many times since we found each other… Six years ago, I would use to calm myself down. And I wish I didn't want it anymore, but it's who I am. Just like you. We can't pretend you never did the things you were forced to do. I want to be here for you, like you are for me, all the time. What I'm trying to say is that right now, this, what we have, it is not a relationship. It's just… sex and parenthood. And I am terrified that once it won't be enough anymore, it will be too late to do anything about it."

"Do you really want to hear how I thought I watched them kill you?" he tried to keep his voice intact. But it was just the two of them and the sound of their breathing could not hide the slightest of cracks that crept between his words.

His hand reached for her neck, his eyes feeling the need to check with hers for permission. A part of her hated herself for making him think he required one. She felt his fingertips trace the line that used to be so definite yet never existed, and as light as he kept his touch, its weight labored her breaths.

"Right here," he said, his lips pressed so tightly together she could no longer distinguish them. Tilting his head to the left, he let the pad of his thumb linger where the cut he had once believed had taken her life began – or ended. She was sure he could detail it for her. "They tore your back open, too. For six years, I thought it was my fault. I saw it every time I closed my eyes."

"And you kept replaying it to punish yourself?"

He didn't need to say anything for her to know she was right. Suddenly the air underneath the sheet burned her lungs and she pulled it down their bodies. The imaginary chill of the summer night was the perfect air for what she asked him next.

"Did you ever think about not being here anymore?"

His touch slid off her skin and he increased the distance between them just as she moved closer to him.

"Yes. It was … easier right after it happened. I didn't care what it would take, but they were going to pay for what they did to you. But then, when it was over … it would be easy, to just end everything. But I would be away from the blood on my hands. And I would never do it to LJ, Lincoln. To you. Because I knew you would want me to keep going, because I would want the same for you."

Sara never considered herself to be a jealous woman. It was something she took great pride in, even though in the long nights of winter, when the clock was ticking away the sleep that would not come to her, she sometimes admitted to the candlelight that it was just another harness keeping her from getting too attached, too shattered when the end, so inevitable for a cynic like her, would claim its share.

But she did wonder about a woman that had gotten to know him as a woman rather than as a statuette in his great game of chess. What was it that halted his eyes on her in particular? What was her favorite part of him to caress? And he, did he pretend it was _she_ that he was kissing, or did he finally let go of her when they were together?

He had to wonder, too, if there had ever been anyone else's face fading on her eyelids as she was giving herself over to sleep. In a way, she pondered, these musings may be the most normal thing about them.

"What was she like? The woman you were with?"

She knew what she would have wanted for him, and his words of the spontaneity, of the woman's carefree, giving, overall happy nature filled her with relief.

"I imagine you needed someone like that," she said.

"Lincoln was a big fan," he smiled. He took her hand again, the confidence of his touch buoying her up like only he could, and guided it to a scar on his eyebrow, one of many eventually hidden by time. "I was all bloodied from his fist. I think I broke his nose or something."

"I thought it was a bit more crooked, yeah," she said. She didn't bother pretending to understand the brothers' relationship or explain the wrongs time had lessened. "Why did you end it?"

"Because she would want a family someday, and that was something I only wanted with you," he said without skipping a beat, as if it was the simplest truth that should not leave her with a lump in her throat.

She thought of the lazy mornings he and their son spent in the kitchen, perusing the cookbooks they had bought along with a new bookshelf. How they searched the supermarket aisles to find the ingredients for the exotic recipes they wanted to try out. Her heart swelled just thinking of how gently he sat their son on the counter, how excitedly he set the table for three, sometimes four. Some days the pair sat on the living room floor, the chessboard between them, and he let the boy win, just to see the joy on his face for that second before he called his dad out for cheating. Being a dad came so naturally to him, was so obviously fulfilling that words of how close it had been to never happening sounded ridiculously misplaced.

One couldn't love too much when everything was okay, when the expression came in a form of a kiss bestowed upon you out of the blue or an embrace without a regard of who may witness it. But when things derailed, Michael loved too much. Lincoln was the clearest proof, alive because his brother loved him more than his own life. And then there was her, a woman he had vowed himself to when it was just one in the array of disadvantages. They hadn't shared a single sunrise, yet he remained loyal to what, if they were truthful, only existed in plans, and those plans weren't even the ones inked across his heart.

"So you were just going to be alone for the rest of your life? Was that your plan?"

If a part of him ever realized how asinine this plan was, not a cell in his body believed it. He started shaking his head before she finished her sentence.

"I was never alone, Sara," he told her, laying her hand on his chest to make her feel what every part of him – except for his eyes – had managed to keep hidden in Fox River. "You were always here, with me. I was at peace with being by myself. I knew I loved you and that you loved me. It was enough for me. In many ways, it was more than I ever thought possible before I met you."

His fingers didn't fight as she let go of their hold. They let hers slip away, frozen in the reluctance he wouldn't voice. As soon as she laid her head where her hand had been just moments ago, the life in his hands was rekindled. He kissed the top of her head, then intertwined his fingers in her hair. If she hadn't closed her eyes under his touch, she would see the serenity that reigned over his face as he studied the auburn shade against his pale skin.

"Okay," he eventually said. "We'll talk. But you'll talk to me, too. About Lille."

"I tell you about it all the time," she pointed out.

"About our son, yes. But I want to hear about _you_. When it was hard for you," he said. A pause ensued, but not for a moment did she think he had no more to say. His hand slid down her arm, far from aimlessly ambling, and he caressed her elbow before she felt the pads of his fingers on the spot that used to deprive her of life while at the same time made it so pervasively bearable. There was no accusation in his voice as he went on, "When you almost let go. When you wished you had never met me. I'm not naive enough to believe you were always okay with it."

She would say that what she had gone through couldn't be compared with his ordeals but realized that it would be prolonging the pattern they had just started to acknowledge. Maybe their time apart really couldn't compare, but it didn't mean it didn't matter equally.

She kissed his cheek in assent. His arms were on the small of her back, unapologetically pressing her closer to him and chivalrously never sneaking under the hem of her attire. If he wanted more than the continuous exchange of gazes, he didn't mention it until she asked him to make love to her.

"Hmmm," he teasingly frowned, tilting his head as if indecisive. "If you ask really nicely, maybe."

She tried to keep a straight face, but the corners of her mouth did nothing to keep in a smile. She moved off him, leaving a tantalizing inch of space between them. Closing her eyes, she remarked that it really could wait until the next day. Yet whatever measure of time he could opt for, tomorrow lay too far ahead in the future for their liking.

* * *

Much, much later, they lay in their bed, the clothes once again forlorn on the bedroom floor, their legs soothingly tangled and the sheets in a heap by their feet. They lay close enough long enough for their skins to carry each other's scent and their hearts found a rhythm that worked for both. After the darkness they had both perdured, the night in each other's arms was still too young for them to shut their eyes in the anticipation of the morning. He ran his fingers through her hair to loosen the knots, although they both knew there would be new ones before the earliest light of the waking day.

"Let's go somewhere, together," he suddenly said. She looked up to meet his eyes, and the resolution she found in them surprised her, even more so after he clarified his words. "Just you and me. A few days. A weekend."

"I'm barely functioning when your brother takes our son for a night, and now you want me to ship him off for a week?" she laughed, but there was a disjoint between what left her mouth and what her mind was thinking. There was something enticing about the idea of the morning that was only theirs, not shortened by the work obligations or brightened up by the laughter of their boy. Just thinking of lying in his arms and telling the time from the changing light made her belly burn.

Maybe they could be only a couple in love, just like millions of others yet so distinct in their love. Maybe they needed to try to be one.

She cursed her transparent face when the excitement of his eyes revealed he knew she acquiesced before she put it in words.

"Okay. Where do you want to go?" she asked, and she should absolutely have known he would only shrug.

"Anywhere, as long as you are there," his smile bathed in modesty so completely absent when his hands slid down her back and embraced the curves of her unclothed body. If every movement of his hand sent blood ravaging through his body as well, he hid it much better than her. His breaths remained steady and his eyes lazily intent on her face, while she gave up breathing altogether to hide the ease with which he could have all of her. "A bed would make a nice addition, though."

She should know better than to laugh, but after years of scarce excuses for it, she still indulged.

"Well, that's helpful, Scofield. That excludes, what, Antarctica?"

"I wouldn't even be too sure of that," he said, but it didn't matter, for she was increasingly sure of where they should go. It was not where the waves broke on golden beaches and the sun caressed the skin with urgency matched only by the passion of the lover's lips. Neither would they wander, hand in hand, under the leafy canopy that kept them to themselves only. Maybe a place where gravestones waited for her visit didn't make a good destination for the first romantic getaway; however, she figured that sometimes you have to go back to the start to have a different ending.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, change of plans. I know I said I only had two chapters left, but I have pretty much semi-retired from writing recently :) The next chapter was originally supposed to have four sections, but in all honesty, I have no idea when I will get around to writing them all. So I decided to just post the opening section, something to prove I am still alive :)  
> Thanks for reading! Thanks to those of you taking time to review! I wish you knew how much it means to me.  
> I hope you like the fluff of this :p pleaaase review.  
> PS: if I screwed up the date, my apologies. It seems like not even the canon could make up its mind.

One thing that Michael didn't know was that Sara made an exception to her resolve to never lie to him. There was a business trip scheduled for late September, plane tickets bought months before the incentive to never leave home and a hotel room reserved when all beds were as soulless as the one he called his own. He would cancel it all without a second thought, for a week away meant seven days without his family. Sara wouldn't hear about it, of course, at least not now when she needed him out of the apartment for a couple of days. It would be a welcome break, she said, a breather to help them get used to their new routines.

Bryce had just started school, with a whole new set of classmates and a new path to school to get used to. To be fair, though, he didn't worry about the transition half as much as his parents did. The asphalt under his feet was the same color as the sidewalks in Lille, and with his kind predisposition, he made friends quickly. There was no need for Uncle Lincoln to keep his promise to, well, talk to parents of any kid who would be mean his nephew.

Lincoln's hand was the first in the air when the school asked for someone to volunteer as baseball coach on Friday afternoons. "Family involvement is an integral part of the educational process," he cited the words he read in one of Michael's parental guides. He cursed a little too much and was definitely too emotionally invested in the games, but his rockstar swagger enamored the mothers and the fathers wanted selfies with _the_ Lincoln Burrows.

Sara started helping out at a downtown clinic. It was only during the clinic's busy hours, but the patients and the staff all loved her as much as she relished in wearing a lab coat with her name on it. It would easy to make it a permanent job someday – if, clearly, someone more important would come into their life first.

"Really. It will do us good," she assured Michael for the third time, hoping he wouldn't nitpick the logic so flawed in her eyes.

She didn't expect him to be gone for the entire week and indeed he returned on the fourth night. By then, the envelopes in which a certain something had been delivered were already disposed of, and if she were a cunning woman rather than a woman in love, she would pat herself on the back.

He tiptoed toward the bedrooms with as little sound as only a life on the run could teach. Peeking inside their boy's room, his eyes landed on a bed that was made but not slept in. In another world, his heart would pound in frenzy and his hands would lose their cool, but the bars on the windows were no longer needed and the calm was now their life.

So he made his way to the master bedroom. As expected, there was a mug on either of the nightstands, some books on the edge of the bed and about to slide off it, more of their peers already scattered on the floor. Their son slept on his father's side of the bed, only the top of his head not hidden by the covers. As though Sara had expected him to come home tonight, she lay in the middle of the bed, offering him half of her pillow. Without wasting any time getting out of his suit, he lay down next to her, on top of the covers so as not to wake either of them up. Before he could lose his fight and let his arms rest on her body, she turned to him, her eyelids still laden with sleep.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered. Kissing the side of her face, he wished she would not hear of it.

It was still too soon for him not to be in awe when his wish came true.

She rolled onto her back, the light of the night having nothing on the brightness of her eyes. He was about to lean closer, cover her lips with his after having been denied for days he would not be ashamed to admit dragged like years. Her fingers, though, were faster and reached to loosen his tie, then pull it over his head.

"I didn't expect you home so early," she said, her hands enveloping his neck, doubtlessly feeling the effect her smallest gesture had on him.

"Liar," he smiled. He would be perfectly content just lying next to her as they both slowly drifted off to sleep, lulled by the warmth of each other. But the longer her eyes stayed on his, the more of their sleepiness disappeared, and underneath her fingers, she must have felt that he understood her insinuation.

"Shower with me?" he finally relented. They sneaked off to the bathroom at the end of the hallway, where she took off his clothes, layer by layer until it was only the two of them.

"I missed you," she told him as the water ran down their bodies, washing away the days they had been apart.

***

If Michael wondered what incentive she could possibly have for lying to him, he got his answer on October 8.

He was still asleep when a pair of tiny feet entered the parents' bedroom, the lack of betraying sound comparable to that of his father. Bryce shook his mom's arm to wake her, keeping a forefinger on his lips in case she had forgotten in her awakening why they needed to get to the kitchen just after the hands of the clocks moved past four. But how could she possibly, after years of making plans for a date she had thought would only take place in another life the melee of this one forced her to believe in.

They opened the fridge to get the eggs and the milk, the cupboard to fetch flour and sugar. Bowls of all colors and sizes were lined in a row on the counter and they preheated the oven, all in their quest to start dad's birthday with a perfect breakfast.

"I should have gotten up at three," Sara sighed at the sight of challenge in front of her.

But of course in their world, plans were a fickle matter.

Michael had been alone for too long and loved too much not to sense there was no one in their bed for his arms to embrace, despite still being caught somewhere between sleep and consciousness. There was no alarm in his eyes, though, as he looked over his shoulder and toward the bathroom, fully confident he would catch the clue of light under the door. Any remaining sleepiness was discarded when he realized she was not there either.

Trying not to think too much into it, for everything that might have once had a reason to harm her was now over, he rolled back onto his hip to recapture sleep that would erase the fleeting reminder of a life without her.

The air was too quiet, though, as if one was exceedingly diligent when it came to closing each door.

He felt asinine for getting up the moment his eyes fell upon their son's empty bed, unmade in the way that revealed its owner didn't sleep but rather waited under the covers.

He knew he should return to bed, go along with their ploy, since if he hadn't picked up on it earlier, a lot of careful thought had to go into it. As he walked toward the kitchen, toward hushed sounds he, now fully awake, discerned, he would freely admit his pace was imbued with selfishness. But if wanting to be with his family every second of today, of every day, was selfish, he for once didn't mind being the most self-absorbed man in the world.

He let the door frame hide him as he watched them, Sara's movements still burdened with somnolence, her eyes still red and puffy in their lack of focus. If their boy felt an ounce of tiredness, he responded to it with surplus energy, the excitement being intoxicating even from across the room. He chatted about Uncle Fernando who was coming over later (Sucre disliked being called by his first name, but of course Bryce was the only exception) and LJ's new camera which would capture their day. Michael knew he would have to sport his best surprise face today, but his joy that still hadn't shown the slightest sign of leaving gave him the confidence no tattoo could ever convey.

Finally, it made him lean a little bit too forward and the boy's loud gasp should probably induce a little bit of guilt in him.

"Dad, you shouldn't be up for at least another hour!" Bryce scolded him, the spoon falling from his hands and making a splash in the chocolate mixture that sent blots to the front of his pajamas. Michael met Sara's eyes, but there was no alarm to be found. Buoyed up by her smile, he walked up to them.

"What's all this?" he asked, and from the way the boy curled his lips he knew it didn't trick anyone into believing the question was anything but redundancy.

"Happy birthday, dad!" Bryce then exclaimed, laying the bowl on the counter with speed that prompted Sara to reach out and steady it before chocolate could be sprawled across the floor.

Bryce threw his arms around dad's neck and was no longer the only one with chocolate smudged on the front of his clothes. But no one minded, of course, not now when the apartment was no longer a place of existence but the home of a family.

They might have never been a couple of saccharine words, but grand gestures had been their companions since day one. Now, when any other couple would celebrate with a kiss of the kind just before the fall of the curtain, it was like they had done this, wished each other a happy birthday, countless times. She leaned closer, put her hand on his chest and gave him a peck on the lips, long enough to taste all the muffins already out of the oven (chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, something else with chocolate), yet quick enough to be considered routine, the unceremonious manner of it all being all he could possibly want.

"You needn't have done all this," he remarked, glancing at the table. There were four kinds of muffins and five flavors of pancakes, a pair for every birthday they celebrated apart. The remaining ones were either still in the oven, pan, or not yet mixed.

He reached for the bowl on the counter, but Sara was quicker. He wanted to argue, cite without words the tiredness in her eyes, but before he could claim his right to make the call, just today, for he was the birthday boy, a key turned in the front door. The familiar sound of Lincoln's gait joined them, together with the sound of bags hitting against his knees as he hurried toward the kitchen.

"Alright, let's do this before he…" Lincoln started before realizing that his little brother beat him to it. "Fuck, man. Can't you for a change let others make and actually go through with their own plans?"

"You said a bad word, Uncle Lincoln," Bryce reminded him.

"Baby, if you ask him for a dollar every time he says that, I guarantee he will stop soon," Sara smirked, then laughed when Lincoln kissed her cheek before locking his arms around his little brother. He held him for probably longer than most brothers would, but they were no ordinary set of brothers.

"Now sit down so that I can make the real pancakes," Lincoln instructed them. With Bryce seated on his lap, Michael reached for Sara's hand, enfolding her fingers in his. For the rest of the day, as Sucre's and C-Note's families arrived (Kellerman excused himself, claiming he had an important meeting. "Better be saving the world," Lincoln growled) and a large cake joined the muffins and LJ kept snapping pictures, infallibly making them the center of each, and they danced together for the first time, through it all he barely let go of her.

He stood next to her as Brad got teary embracing his former coworker and a friend after six years, and his arm was wrapped around her waist, offering and asking for her head to rest on his shoulder, when Henry met Bryce for the first time, misty-eyed.

Bryce was just as impressed, his eyes wide open as he watched the grey-haired man move about the room.

"I don't have any grandparents," he whispered to his parents, remembering the tales Thibaut had always been armed with after any school break: how everything his grandmother owned was either in pastel colors or had a flowery pattern; how the air in every room was a blend of vanilla and the soapy smell of old people; how he showed off his knowledge of increasingly large numbers by counting the old people moles on his grandfather's arms and how soft, albeit wrinkly his grandmother's cheek was when he kissed her. Of course most of what Thibaut talked about revolved around the giant boxes wrapped in red that Santa left for him at his grandparents' and the seemingly endless supply of candy in grandmother's cupboards. But Bryce knew that gifts were only things and there was no greater present than presence.

"Maybe Henry and Judy could be my grandparents – or something like that," Bryce suggested to his parents shyly. But this sense of an emerging family wasn't Michael's real present either.

After all the guests had gone home and the sugar in Bryce's bloodstream could no longer fight off sleep, and it was still his birthday only perhaps in Hawaii, Michael lay on their bed, his back propped up with pillows, the book unopened on the nightstand to the right of him. Sara was in the bathroom, and the more minutes he spent wringing his waiting hands, the more difficult it was to banish the thoughts of what was likely to follow. Once he would have been ashamed of the ease with which his mind slipped into the anticipation, but now it elicited a smile, especially in moments when he watched her tuck the strands of hair behind her ear, still trying though they never obeyed. Her eyes didn't bother concealing how elated she was that they were together, that they could be together whenever they wanted, with only the two of them in the whole width of the world to oppose. They were free, so ecstatically free.

They were each other's in body, in soul, in every way that mattered. What was written on the documents mattered, too, but it was eclipsed by the cornerstone. In the previous life, he would care more, but now he was too busy loving to really spare a thought. Besides, he knew, they both did, that it would change, soon.

When Sara finally emerged from the bathroom, there was no skimpy robe tied around her waist, nor was any inch on her skin seducing his attention. The pajamas fell loosely down her figure like it was a night like any other – which, if he was honest, it was. The fact that today marked the day he was born didn't make him want her any more, or any differently from the days when there was nothing to celebrate but their love.

There was a blush on her cheek as her eyes locked with his.

"Ready for one more present?" she asked.

As much as she could make his mind race, she could also bring it to a soothing halt. The excitement that poured from her eyes, the struggle to stop her feet from taking her into his arms – one day it would spell the other thing they both wanted. But for now the time was frozen in their closeness and there was still so much to learn, to enjoy about each other, about the three of them, before they would rewrite their present once more.

"If it's birthday sex, I'm sorry to say but you are a bit late," he teased, and though she didn't want to, giggles escaped her. God, he loved seeing her like this, happy without hesitation, completely in the moment. It made him believe, really believe, that despite everything he had taken from her, there was something he could and did continue giving her.

She opened the wardrobe door and from under a pile of clothing that either fell from their hangers or never had gotten one in the first place (for she was a pack rat; if he had once thought she joked, living with her proved that they had both always meant every word), she pulled a box.

Her fingers could suture with precision that left no scar, but wrapping presents was a skill she hadn't mastered. He loved how the bow was uneven and somehow skewed and how the unconcealed tape glistened in the light, its pieces much bigger than was the need.

She sat cross-legged by his side as he set out to open the present with care he took when folding a crane for her.

"God, just open it," she ran her hand through her hair impatiently, and there they were again, the unruly tresses only his kisses could tame. He smiled, but the speed of his hands remained unchanged.

When he finally opened the lid of the box, he found a photo album inside.

"We never took any pictures, before," she said, as though he needed to be told what it was. "So after I found out we were going to have a baby, I took as many of them as I could. I have boxes of them in Lille, and I know we'll go there, but I wanted to give you this, today. Because I know we are what you want for your birthday."

He didn't need to ask for her to be next to him when he perused the opening page. Her head rested on his shoulder, right where his marked skin met the one only carrying the memory of her kiss, forever renewed.

The first photo she had taken the day she found out she was pregnant. She stood in front of the mirror in her little cottage in Costa Rica, her forehead sweaty from the heat, exhaustion and hormones, the t-shirt pulled up far enough to reveal her belly. She had been too far along already for a doctor in her to be lax, but she did not yet see the curve, not even after Michael pointed it out to her. So he would have known from a single glance, she mused, thinking back to her wonderings about how she would share the news if they were lucky in a different way.

Photos taken on the board of the ship captained by Chloe's father followed, the presence of another life becoming more prominent with each one. Then there was the backdrop of the blank walls of their first home; by the time she needed both hands to cradle the miracle under her heart, the walls had color and she could be any other joyous pregnant woman.

There were videos, too. The last time Michael had held a USB stick with a shaky hand, he thought it carried the only hope of ever seeing her again. Now, though a tinge of regret that he would have to learn what he should have witnessed was incorrigibly present, it was just one more piece he was eager to put in its place in their life together.

The first video explained the change of walls from the undefined white to the warming yellow. She wore a dress that embraced her belly, as big as it got, probably, and there were three sample colors on the table in front of her. It was one of the scarce pieces of furniture in the room, in addition to the mattress on a floor (much like the beds he and Lincoln had grown up on, Michael's brain didn't fail to notice) and a small crib.

With one hand, she ran circles on the belly; with the other, she rubbed her chin, her eyes darting from one sample to another in indecision. Finally, she sighed and looked down at her belly. With a voice sweet without being cloying, she asked, "Which color should we choose?"

After a few seconds, a frown played on her forehead, but her lips were still ensconced in an exuberant smile.

"So you'll be as reticent as your dad, huh?" she might have scolded, but her heart fluttered with relief that the baby was already more like his father than her. _I'll give you everything I possibly can_ , Michael had told her in Gila. And, boy, did he keep his word, giving her all of himself.

Her body suddenly jerked and she inhaled sharply when the baby kicked, as though stating that he could have only gotten good things from his father. Protecting the ones he loved before he was even born.

"Well that doesn't help me with the paint one bit," Sara laughed.

The older their son got, the less his life was documented in photographs, dozens of short videos on the USB stick taking their place instead. There he was, painting with paint of the palms of his hands, making patterns before he even knew what the word meant. He was filmed having his lunch, his eyes bright and clear, and he must have been the only kid in the world who liked the green veggies – or so everyone kept telling her in envy.

As they watched Bryce wander about the zoo, pointing and naming the animals he passed, Michael turned to Sara and told her that he loved her. In all honesty, he could repeat that every day, from the day's silent start to the last second of the waning evening, yet he could not capture just how bright her light was for him.

"Well, there's more," her lips were barely able to withstand the sweep of the smile. But it was not the other videos that she meant. There was a folded paper on the bottom of the box, Bryce's school assignment from the previous year. His teacher had them write down what they wanted to be when they grew up. Unlike his classmates, however, their son did not write about being a firefighter, a teacher or an astronaut.

"In case you still doubt you were always with us," Sara said.

In their boy's handwriting, not yet as neat as the one he sported today and with more cross-outs than what was his average now, it said: _I am not really sure what I want to be when I grow up because I have changed my mind a few times and I am pretty sure that will happen again, but I know who I want to be. I want to be like my dad. I want to be brave like my dad. I want to never forget that family is the most important thing in life. I want to never give up and I want to always have faith. And I want people to be so proud of me as I am of my dad._

(Underneath the paragraph, his teacher scribbled down that while it was a very nice tribute to his father, the aim of the assignment was to describe a profession.)

"Nice goals to strive for, huh?" Sara softly said after he reread the writing for the third time. She looked up at his face, watched as his eyes took in every feature of her countenance, in awe as though it was the first time. Whatever he was about to tell her – she had a pretty good idea what it was, though – she silenced by placing her finger on his lips.

It was not about what could be said, either with words, hands, their bodies. If it were, they would forever strive for some perfection of expression, the inexistent race continuously getting in the way of simply being. They had raced against the clock for too long, run for their lives too many times to ever hurry with each other, to ever take for granted one another's simplest syllable. Thus, they would never lose but only keep on winning what was most elusive to most.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all,
> 
> I wish I had a better apology for the past two months than the good ol' "life just got the better of me" one. But thanks to those of you still sticking around :)  
> As you may remember, once upon a time I spoke about the previous chapter being cut short. Well, this is the rest of it, haha :) as you may notice from its structure. I guess nothing that spectacular happens in this one, just a few snapshots of the Scofields ... but it was important for me to write these, as they bring the story the full circle. That said, I hope you like it :)  
> Now the good news - I have already finished the short epilogue. I'll be posting it on Friday, since I'm celebrating my birthday then and I think it would be a fitting day to conclude the story. Like a little gift for me and for all of you who have been following the story from the start :) honestly, I still can't comprehend how long this ended up being :O  
> Anyway. I hope you are well and that you will like this.  
> I know I have been horrible these past two months, but please review? :)  
> More on Friday.
> 
> Love, winter.  
> PS: I think I made up a couple of things in this chapter. If they go against canon, so sorry. Also, maybe some things have been mentioned in previous chapters? I have been too lazy to go back and read them.

**Sandcastles/The Bars Between Us**

**Part Three – Forward**

**Final Chapter – Part Two**

Sara never knew whether Michael was a cat or a dog person. In late October, she realized that Michael himself had no idea. Growing up, he had never been in one home long enough – or at least not in a home _caring_ enough – to have a pet, and afterward, when he had a job and a place of a redundant size, he was too used to being alone to think of getting a pet. And of course, after he lost most of what he had and all of what could be, solitude was the one solace and the deserved tormenter.

Thus when their son hesitatingly asked if he could maybe get a pet, Michael was just a thrilled by the prospect. If Bryce had a specific pet in mind, his dad had no preference. So on one of those autumn afternoons when the leaves still adorned the world with warmth before sticking together in a slippery sheen on sidewalks, the three of them headed to the nearest animal shelter (Sara might insist that their son was barely like her, but the more time he spent with him, the clearer it was to Michael that the boy might see the world in a way that matched his father's, but he interpreted it and acted upon it with warmth and compassion matched only by his mother).

"The kittens are this way," the lady at the counter pointed to the right after Bryce had informed her that they were there to adopt a cat.

"No, I don't want a kitten," he clarified. "I want a cat no one else wants."

In the end, he chose a cat that was black without a blemish and missing his left eye. He named him Toulouse, after his favorite city in France, and they were inseparable from the moment the door of the cage opened and Toulouse made a tentative step forward, then another, his widened eye assessing Bryce's parents. He proceeded to meow quietly and, balancing himself on his hind legs, place his paws on the boy's shoulders, unwilling to leave his arms for the entire drive home.

A bed for Toulouse was put in the laundry room, yet somehow every night the door of Bryce's room was left slightly ajar. Under the stealth of the dark, four little paws jumped on the boy's bed and slept the night away curled in a ball by his legs.

The parents knew, of course, but didn't mind.

"Does this make us terrible parents?" Michael asked one night, too late a night for two working parents and too young a one for two lovers reunited after so long.

"Probably," Sara laughed in response.

Halloween was the first real holiday they would celebrate together as a family. Of course Bryce had heard people referring to his father as Superman but he never concurred with them more than when dad brought home two of the largest pumpkins the boy had ever seen. Regardless of his effort, he could do little more than watch in awe as dad picked up the knife – the big one, the one he didn't even like mom handling – and carved a two-teethed grin so skillfully no one would believe it was his first time doing it. In all honesty, _this_ was all as new to him as it was to his son.

Of course Michael had celebrated holidays before. When they were kids, Lincoln hadn't exactly planned his juvie stays around the holidays, but the ones he was out, he got a turkey or a cake somehow, a tree of a respectable size and a box of baubles (Michael had a pretty good idea why they were all in different colors), even a couple of presents (though truthfully, Michael would prefer to get no present at all, since they meant Linc risking juvie, _again_ ). Later, both of them had tried for LJ. Even though all essential elements of a celebration in style were on every photograph LJ took, they all knew there were too many people absent from the table for the holiday spirit to truly descend upon them.

But now, as Toulouse jumped on the table, sniffed the orange pumpkins that had taken the spotlight usually reserved for him and climbed into one of them for his afternoon nap, Michael realized that for the first time, he had every reason for and no excuse against celebrating every holiday the calendar had to offer.

* * *

What Michael didn't know about Sara was that she was allergic to walnuts, and when he found out, he of course couldn't help but reprimand himself for not knowing.

"Well now you are just being ridiculous," she laughed after he had apologized for the third time for almost ordering them a walnut cake for dessert. She squeezed his fingers between hers and laid her head on his shoulder, eliciting the self-deprecating sigh that would once annoy her. Now she kissed the skin just above the collar of his shirt and couldn't decide whether she was just finally carefree or simply in love. When he rested his chin on the crown of her head, she realized that she was both. It walked hand in hand, being in love and free.

Later they took a ride on the ferry. They were on the deck, braving the chill as the lights of New York passed them by. Sara tried to keep her hair sprawling down her left shoulder, but the wind kept ruffling it. The more she told him to quit laughing, the more Michael found it impossible not to laugh. It was probably what gave him the courage to ask what had been on his mind for longer than he would admit.

"Why did you keep him? You had no reason to hope I would ever be here to raise him with you."

Not too long ago, in fear of being misunderstood even though his air left no room for doubt in anyone's eyes, he would attest how happy he was that she had. Now he knew that there was no need.

Sara only shrugged.

"He was our baby. You and me, we made a baby, against all odds."

She remembered the days in Costa Rica, how the initial relief and anticipation had been tainted with a suspicion that gradually turned into horror unimaginable, let alone utterable. She ascribed the weight of her limbs to it, nausea that convulsed her body, restlessness that didn't grant her sleep. She should have known better, being a doctor and all, but by the time it occurred to her, she hadn't been alone for nearly three months. She had started volunteering at a local clinic and one morning (she had stopped counting the mornings when she couldn't keep anything down), a girl no older than seventeen walked in. _Pregnant_. Sara knew right away, but the girl wouldn't hear of it, so she enumerated the signs to her. At first she smirked, so many matching her own symptoms, but after she finished, the chaos of her life subsided and the world became louder than ever.

"It made you happy," Michael now said after she told him. It wasn't a conjecture.

"Immensely."

"Why didn't you find someone? It would be easier, not doing it all by yourself."

"I thought about it for a while, after Bryce was born. But I was never alone. And, you know," she hid her smile in a sigh. "Then there was that other thing."

"What other thing?" he asked, as though it had ever been any different with him.

"Loving you."

He kissed her forehead, like he had a habit of doing these days, so often without a reason or regard for who may see it. They didn't have to hide anymore.

"Then, when you saw me on the news … Did you think I left you?"

"For a while, yes," she admitted. He tried not to show the hurt her words inflicted, though he'd be the loudest to claim he deserved it. She knew him too well not to see how he clenched his teeth. She cupped his face, caressing it to ease the tension. "Oh, come on. Like you didn't when they told you I had been alive all those years."

The remark went disregarded.

"And you went to the embassy. You thought you were still wanted for jumping bail, and yet you went there. They could have arrested you and taken Bryce from you."

He was being nice about it: they absolutely would have taken Bryce from her if she had still been a wanted fugitive.

"Yeah, but I knew you'd take care of our boy if I couldn't," she said, because no matter how carefully he had put up a veneer, for her and everyone else, somehow she had always seen him for who he really was.

After they got home, their cheeks reddened by the cold and their hands far from being tired of holding the other, they led each other to the bedroom and took off their clothes. There was one condom left, but it tore when the wrapping was opened. He cursed under his breath, but it didn't matter, really. It had not mattered for a while now; they just hadn't put it in words yet.

"Don't worry about it," she told him, then laughed at his shocked face. "I thought you said you wanted more kids."

"Of course I do, it's just… Are you sure?"

In a moment of another kind, she would wonder what there was to be sure about now when they were together.

"I'm not 29 anymore."

"You don't look your age any more now than you did then," he quickly assured her, like she knew he would.

"So we're making a baby, then?" she gave him a smile he could resist no better than the sound of another set of tiny feet running toward their bedroom on a lazy Sunday morning.

* * *

Sara didn't know that Michael had made sure that the rent for her apartment in Chicago was paid, even during the years when there had been no incentive to hope she would ever again be anything more than a name on a lease.

She found out one evening when the four of them – Toulouse was of course considered to be a member of the Scofield household – were having Indian take out. Bryce decided he talked enough about his day in school and asked mom to tell about her trip to India. As she talked about the people she had met, the places she had visited, she remembered the silly little things she brought home with her that later served as those few personal touches she allowed herself to have in her former apartment.

"I wonder what happened with it all," she sighed in remembrance, and something about Michael's expression told her he knew all too well.

Later, when their son wandered around the land of dreams as pleasant as their reality and Toulouse was ensconced by his legs, they made their way to the balcony. It was one of those rare clement nights of late autumn, so they didn't need anything but each other's arms.

"Why did you do it if you thought I was never coming back?" she asked him.

He must have been expecting the question, for his hand, loosening the knots in her hair, didn't stall.

"Because I couldn't have them pack your life in boxes and action it off or throw it in the trash. And I couldn't do it myself either," he said with candor unimaginable just a couple of months ago.

A few days after the first snowflakes of the winter stuck on the pavements and just before the first lights of the season adorned the streets, the two of them flew to Chicago. She kept the scarf wrapped tightly around her neck to fight off the cold and the doubt, but the closer they got the apartment building she had once called home, the more she felt herself shiver. It didn't escape him, of course, and he wasn't foolish enough to believe the temperature was the main culprit.

"We don't need to do this," he said.

They didn't. They were meeting Brad and his wife for lunch, Katie for the afternoon coffee, and Michael had finally accepted Henry's invitation to dinner. Since this was their first getaway, it surely wouldn't hurt them to have as much time for themselves as they could.

"No, I'm fine," she insisted, but they both knew it was her favorite word of platitude. They walked past the corner shop where she used to buy frozen dinners after a long day at Fox River. The cracks in the gray asphalt they stepped over like she had when she had been innocent enough to believe in superstition. Then they waited at the traffic light that gave them permission to cross the road way, way quicker than she remembered from back in the day.

Once they stood in front of the building that had been her home before she learned the true meaning of the word, she stalled by reading the names of the residents. It was still there, right at the bottom of the list, the tag on which she had handwritten _Tancredi._ The ink had not fared well against the weather and the lettering was barely intelligible, fading over time just like she had from everyone's mind but his.

"Have you been here before?" she asked him as they climbed the stairs.

"No."

He might have never set foot inside the building, but they had been here once, in promise. _You should see my apartment_ , she joked the day after he had given her the first flower. The infirmary could be any of the hundreds in the city and he was only a man and she only a doctor not warned on her first day on the job not to fall in love with someone like him. However, he was never a prisoner, not really. She might be a terrible judge of character but she was right when it mattered the most.

Michael unlocked the door. Neither spoke as the door, creaking after years of disuse, slowly opened. The air inside had been left undisturbed for a better part of a decade, but they would be lying if they claimed that was what kept them from walking in.

"Is this where it happened?" he later asked quietly, standing by the couch, as if he knew already. He probably did, she guessed, knowing just enough of his years without her for his frantic loyalty to break her heart every time she thought of it.

When she put his conjecture into words he braced himself against the couch, as though he had been carrying both of their weights of the day that almost ended what they had barely started. If she was candid, she didn't bring the night of her overdose to the fore of her thoughts nearly as often as he did.

"Hey, it wasn't your fault," she told him, laying her hand on his back and for once, she didn't feel him relax against her touch.

"Don't give me the NA lines, please," he said brusquely, something she figured he would apologize for later. "Did you try to…"

She hurried to deny it but was too quick for either of them to fall for it.

"I don't know," she then admitted.

Time was supposed to arm you with clarity, but that day, it was much more than what those simple labels called it – his escape, her overdose. There was the conversation with her father ( _Liar_. _Thief_ ), the kiss and the wrongfulness of it, the keys and the betrayal of his, her inability to do anything but everything for him, the breaking of a code she had so staunchly stood behind until he appeared. All she wanted was for all of it to come to a still. She didn't want any of it so much that she forgot to think of anything else she might want.

"I miscalculated. I hadn't used in so long that the dose I used to handle just fine was too much for me," she said. She didn't know how any of her words were supposed to soothe him, but perhaps loving someone didn't mean shielding them from the pain, even when it entailed lying. Facing it all together, offering a hand and a shoulder rather than enforcing patronization, that was the kind of love she wanted, thus should give.

So when he asked her how close it was, even though she could feel his heart rip open with every syllable that left her lips, she said, "Too close."

"I should have found another way," he sighed, but after years of perusing that fateful night, leaving the door open remained the only way.

She knew better by now than think any phrase, whether a cliché ( _regret does nothing but mar the present_ ) or candor ( _I know you wouldn't do it if you had any other option_ ), could bring him out of his darkness. It would pass, it always did, like the star-lit sky loses its battle against daybreak. Maybe in time they would lose their footing less and less. If anything, she feared the day they would no longer mourn what had been, for their luck rested upon the misfortune of more people she could count with both of their fingers.

Sara rested her head on his shoulder, relieved at the slight calm it brought to his breathing. Her eyes fell upon the coach and she remembered lying there, on her side, hearing her heaves subsiding, the madness in her head dissolving, the perception of her surroundings fading. She remembered her heartbeat slowing, letting it slow down even after she knew it had never been this faint and if she didn't do something, it would only grow weaker. As life was leaving her and she let it, there was one thing that would not slip from her mind, and years later, she finally didn't have to feel guilty about it anymore.

"I love you," she told him.

She left him in the living room and walked toward the bedroom, so barely furnished with second-hand wardrobes and pastel bedspread. She remembered her father, how hesitatingly he sat on the edge of the bed the few times he had given in and visited her in this place so beneath their social standing. Many words that should have remained unspoken, never thought of, had left his lips, and shame so often substituted the understanding she needed; but in the end, her dad had done the right thing. It cost him his life, and for all she knew, a string of his characteristically heartless decisions may follow it had he lived, but it was how she chose to remember him. _The man who had done the right thing_. He would probably despise Michael upon the first few meetings, but once he would let go of his ambitions, Sara chose to believe her dad would base his respect for Michael on who he was, not what he had done. And he would adore Bryce. His features softened by the passing years and his smile unburdened by the stress of his job, she could picture her father chasing the little boy around the park with joy he had never had time for when she had been little.

She opened the closet door to do away with the lump in her throat. There were the dresses she had worn during her father's campaigns, the ones plain enough for her to blend in rather than stand out enough to have no choice but oppose his creed; the couple she had bought in case she ever let anyone take her out as a woman, not an addict; the work clothes, just as dull and unrevealing as the code had instructed. That had been the one code she had not broken during her time in Fox River.

He didn't try to conceal his nearing steps. Her heart still did that jump when he stood behind her, close enough for her to feel his warmth yet with enough distance between them that she craved to annihilate it.

"I held to the idea of who I am for so long I think I have forgotten who I was," she told him, looking at the clothes of colors she would have never picked for herself now.

He reached out for a hanger with a blouse of a hue of gray she no longer recognized

"You wore this on the day we met," he said, and she didn't need to turn around to know he was smiling.

"Did I?"

"You don't remember? I am disappointed, Dr. Tancredi."

It was at that moment that she realized it was not only the past that made the return to this place feel so disjointed. She wasn't a Tancredi anymore; not in her heart, at least.

"Well, I'm not the hyper-observant one."

"As much as I wish it wasn't you in that infirmary," he said, putting the hanger back in the closet, "I have always been happy it was."

Later, when they let the door close on another chapter of the past they were finally on the verge of letting be, they both knew they would only get happier.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all,
> 
> well, here we are, at the end :) been quite a journey. i can't believe i actually managed to finish this monster of a story. thank you to everyone for reading and those of you who reviewed along the way; there are too many of you to name, but you know who you are and thank you so so much. I loved connecting with you all :)  
> i hope you liked the story, that it made you happy, made you laugh, sometimes cry. then i didn't waste time writing it ;) i hope you'll return to it from time to time. since this is the final chapter, i won't be able to reply to your reviews, if you leave any. so i'll just thank you here in advance. Always makes me happy to hear someone enjoys what i write.  
> well, this is it from me. there are a couple of scenes i ended up not using in the final version, so i might post them as oneshots eventually. we'll see.  
> thank you again. feel free to get in touch here or on tumblr (same username). and let's keep our fingers crossed for season six :)  
> byeeeee and much love, winter.

**Sandcastles/The Bars Between Us**

**Part Three – Forward**

**The End**

One thing Michael did know about Sara, though, was that she would say yes. No matter where he would steal the last kiss before the new kind of forever began, regardless of the hands of the clock when the question left his lips, whatever the name on the little box was, she would say yes. So he got her something absolutely not expensive enough in his eyes and something absolutely too extravagant in hers. He figured it was a good compromise.

It was Bryce who had given him the idea for the perfect time. It was a couple of weeks before the Halloween and they were shopping for decorations, of course passing the aisles stocked with Christmas-themed items.

"Mom loves Christmas," Bryce remarked. "The tree, the lights, the music, everything."

So Michael endeavored to have everything, the music, the lights, the tree, and more. Three evenings before the Christmas Eve, when Bryce was already tucked in and asleep, he told Sara he had forgotten something in the office. She gave him that smile that barely moved her lips but shone in her eyes, then kissed his lips, letting them linger there for that additional second no one but them would notice.

When he returned after an hour, an hour that dragged on for longer than some he had spent staring death in the face, she still sat cross-legged on the couch, with a blanket on her lap and a book in her hands. He probably should be more nervous or nervous at all, given the slight weight in the pocket of his coat, but as she looked up at him, he had never been surer of anything in his life.

"How's the project coming along?" she asked without suspicion.

"I'm pretty optimistic about it," he smiled. "Come to the balcony with me?"

There were two paper cups of hot chocolate in his hands, and even though she cited the cold as a reason for staying in, cuddled under the blanket, the cup the steam still billowed from made her give in. If anything, really, the cold was their ally. She was nestled up next to him, his arms were wrapped around her body, and under the blinking Christmas lights, he could see their future clearer than ever before.

So after they had emptied their cups and there was just a little bit of chocolate on her upper lip that he couldn't wait to kiss away, and she was busy talking about how excited she was about the imminent visit from France, he reached for the little box in his pocket. He held it in his hand until she turned her head back to him because it was how they were, never able to keep their eyes off of each other for long.

The smile her lips were shaped in disappeared as soon as she realized what it was that he was holding. Her jaw dropped and she gasped, and he had to laugh at the surprise, for she knew this was coming. There may not be rings on their fingers, but it was a mere formality that didn't match their feelings. Just weeks ago, at a business party, he had introduced her as his wife and hadn't realized his slip of the tongue until they were already home. She admitted that she, too, hadn't caught it until a wife of one of Michael's colleagues asked her why they had opted against wearing rings.

The ring that arrested her eyes might have no diamonds, but to call it unassuming would be an understatement. What other rings carried in carats, this one did in a crane that adorned it. It was the same shape as the paper ones he had never stopped folding for her. He would have liked to add a couple and a few more small diamonds, but for her, it was perfect just as it was.

"Yes," she said before he had a chance to say anything.

"But I haven't even asked you yet," he laughed. Every major event in their story so far was an aberration, a perfect imperfection of meeting each other behind the prison walls, getting on her good side to get her to do what he needed, pushing her to the verge of death, more than once, having her raise their child by herself; the least he could do was ask her to marry him in a way she deserved, in a way a man he demanded of himself to be was supposed to ask a woman, especially a woman like her.

So she sighed, tears already glistening under the celebratory lights that shone for the world and for the two of them only. He repositioned himself so that she was the only thing in his sight, as if he had to black out any distractions, as if he had any doubts. With her hair messed up from the long day, her cheeks reddened from the persistent cold they couldn't feel, in a worn-out sweater about twice her size, she still took his breath away without having to try.

"Sara," he began, the name that was so much more than the sum of its sounds. In their beginning, it was a word that was never to leave his lips; then a sign of trust, a caress, a betrayal; for one night, in Gila, it was a relief and a promise before becoming laden with guilt he refused to let go of. Now it was love. Amazement, and love.

"I've broken more promises than I have kept, and my presence has left marks on you that I can never erase. I told you lies I will forever regret. I have everything against me when I tell you that those days are past, and that I am determined to be the man you deserve. I don't want the six years to catch up on the _I love you_ s I missed; I want forever, and more. So will you do me the honor of marrying me?"

Her eyes were steady on his after he was finished, as though she expected more. They had never been a couple of long words and elaborate speeches, for they had never had the time for it. Now, with the time spread out in front of them for their taking, they were too busy loving each other to philosophize.

"Are you done," she asked, and when he nodded, she embraced his face with her hands, slowly leaning closer until she was close enough for him to smell the chocolate on her lips.

"Yes," she said, somehow making the word sound potent beyond its mere three letters. Then she repeated it, as though not quite believing they were giving each other forever.

There was something new that Michael discovered about Sara in hours too early to be called morning. Making love to her when she was absolutely elated was practically impossible.

Her body was hot under her palms, but her eyes were wide open and faced upwards, a grin foolishly resting on her face even though he kissed her in all the ways and all the placed she liked. Finally he gave in and kissed her belly with the gentlest of kisses before resting his chin on the hollow of her hip.

"I'm sorry," she laughed. "I'm here, I'm focused."

She cleared her throat, and for a moment he thought he may get to love her tonight after all. But as her hands reached to tuck the loose hair behind her ears, they somehow bumped into each other at an angle that reminded her of the ring that now reigned on her finger. A new round of giggles ensued, something he didn't mind in the slightest, and when her whole body shook with happiness she could not keep inside, he lay next to her, kissing her bare shoulder.

"I'm so happy right now," she said, and never had the words been spoken with which he concurred more. She turned her head so that their foreheads were one and he lowered his hand, placing it on the little secret neither had spoken aloud of, yet with each passing day thought of a little more.

* * *

Bryce knew from the moment he woke up that there was something different about this morning. The fact that Christmas was two days away had nothing to do with it. It was the silence that remained undisturbed the closer he got to the kitchen. When dad didn't go to work, he was always up before Bryce, waiting for him to wake up so that they could make breakfast for mom together. This morning, though, as the boy made his way to the kitchen, barefoot and past the Christmas tree so tall it towered even over Uncle Lincoln, he seemed to be the first one up. Even Toulouse only opened his eye, as if weighing the pros and cons of leaving the crumpled sheets before deciding to sleep in.

Bryce's age was now closer to six than to five, thus unfazed he opened the fridge and took out the milk. He moved one of the chairs to the counter and was just about to climb on it when a key turned in the front door.

Mom locked the door twice every evening, a habit Bryce would find redundant if he didn't know little bits and pieces of his parents' history. The person entering, though, tried to open the door after only one turn of the key. It couldn't be anyone but Uncle Lincoln, because only someone with a frame of his size had nothing to be afraid of.

No matter how threatening Uncle Lincoln's arms looked, though, his mouth sprawled into a smile after walking into the kitchen and laying his eyes on his "favorite" nephew (Bryce knew he was Uncle Lincoln's _only_ nephew). He lifted the boy up almost as gently as dad.

"What's this?" he grunted at the sight of the milk on the table.

"Dad's not up yet," Bryce told him, "so I'm making breakfast for myself. It's not that hard."

Uncle Lincoln made a strange face, then shook his head. Bryce was right in assuming that his uncle wouldn't let him have something as mundane as cereal for breakfast when there was no rush (and Lincoln always took time for his family, now, work be damned); it wasn't the whole story, though. Michael had been the one awake hours before his big brother was to report to juvie; Lincoln was out cold until last minute. While they were retrieving the Scylla cards, it was either the planning or its execution keeping Michael up most nights, and the years before he found his family brimmed with demons with no regard for time. This normalcy, as mundane as sleeping in was for most people, was something Lincoln was still getting used to and his hand was trembling as he reached for the flour.

* * *

Michael's arms were still wrapped around her when she opened her eyes, one of his hands still delicately placed where there was nothing yet to cradle. Their bedroom no longer bathed in the glisten of Christmas lights, having been replaced by the morning light. As per usual, they had forgotten to draw the curtains before getting lost in each other beneath the covers, and Michael hadn't done it either before she would wake, still asleep next to her.

She looked at the ring on her hand. It had been mere hours since he had placed it there, but it seemed like she had been wearing it forever, completely inured to the feel of it and yet absolutely bewildered by it. He had her words, she had his crane, and soon they would have matching rings. Six months ago, they had thought they would never have anything more than knowing what they had had was real. Now here they were, with a new life they had created. And they were barely starting.

Carefully, she moved away from him. Just weeks ago, he'd stir awake, the life without her still too raw a pain not to fear the return to it. These mornings there were no arms reaching for her, pulling her back into an embrace she had been absent from for so long.

He still hadn't woken when she came back from the bathroom. Sitting down on the bed, she bent down and kissed his cheek. His eyes opened without alarm, then, after falling upon her, closed again, lost in their bliss and time.

"It's past eight," she told him.

His eyes stared at her again, this time in disbelief. She laughed as glancing at his wristwatch confirmed her words.

"You get ready and I'll make our son some breakfast," she said. He was about to protest, but she silenced him by covering his mouth with her hand. "I was making him breakfast for five years, you know. I'm pretty sure I can handle it."

He didn't argue. She felt his lips, hidden under her palm, spread into a smile. If at first it didn't make sense, she, too, smiled when blinded by a sunray that reflected off the ring. It was like it had been there for six years rather than six hours. In a way, it was.

There was no need for her to make breakfast for their son, of course. Bryce was sitting at the table, his legs dangling off the chair and his mouth full of chocolate chip pancake (they had run out of blueberries, something Lincoln saw as a clear sign he needed to be over more often). There was a half-eaten pancake on the plate in front of him, and from the equal size of the pieces into which he cut it, she could tell he was not hungry anymore, yet not full enough to tell his uncle there was no need for more food.

"Don't you think you are going overboard a bit, Linc?" Sara asked him, bending down to kiss the top of her son's head. Lincoln was still at the stove, the pan in his hand, and on the counter beside him were two plates, both with a hearty pile of pancakes. But she guessed that with Christmas just days away, there was no way Lincoln would let them have non-sugary breakfasts.

"You're the one to talk, Sara," Lincoln smirked, "I get here, eight in the morning, and your son, all alone in the kitchen, making himself cereal. Do you know how much crap there is in that box?"

"That's a bad word, Uncle Lincoln," his nephew reminded him (if he had taken the advice his mom had once given him and asked for a dollar every time his uncle had a filthy mouth, he would be the richest kid in his class, a true entrepreneur). Then he gasped, like his mom had the previous night.

"What?" Lincoln asked, because he hadn't noticed it yet. But Bryce had, his father's son. He took mom's hand and just stared at her, his mouth open in excitement that didn't allow any words.

"What the fuck is going on?" Lincoln repeated (yes, Bryce would have been a very rich boy by now). When he finally realized, though, he dropped the pan, leaving it to the stove's mercy, and with tears in his eyes he _might_ admit to, hugged both Sara and Bryce.

"Uncle Lincoln, I can't breathe," Bryce giggled.

"Just a minute longer," his uncle insisted, closing his eyes very tightly in hopes of suffocating that mist he, in all honesty, would not be _happy_ to admit to.

When Michael rushed into the kitchen, chasing every moment he could share with his family, Lincoln hugged him before wishing him good morning or offering him his congratulations. It might be a polite thing to do, letting his little brother kiss his kid and fiancée good morning first, but Lincoln was never the polite one and truth be told, he was the culprit for all this happiness. Had he not been sentenced to death for killing a man, his brother would have never walked into that infirmary and the little boy would never be born. So he deserved to be a little bit dramatic, his nephew having to yell three times that the pancake was burning before getting his uncle's attention.

The said pancake was a black mess and the pan probably past the point of salvation. Still, it ended in the sink under a stream of cold water, because faith ran deep in this family. And thus they sat down, glasses of orange juice of course not neglected. It had taken six years, but now they had it: the clatter of the plates and cutlery, the chatter about matters not at all of life and death, cranes made from paper napkins and white gold. A few feet away, there was a pile of presents of all sizes and colors, all festooned with glittery ribbons, yet none shone brighter than the one nobody, regardless of their nimble fingers, could catch and wrap and bestow away. It was in their eyes, the smiles they had no reason to fight, in the hand Michael again placed on Sara's belly because he just couldn't help himself no matter how daring it was, for their first-born was observant enough to pick up on it.

They were the lucky ones. Perhaps they had always been; but now, now they could finally say it without restraints. They were the lucky ones.


End file.
